Today at 8 A.M. Wednesday September 12, the lovely, amazing Elizabeth Edwards will be our guest on BASHAM & CORNELL RADIO at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas.
Don't forget, Congressman and Democratic presidential contender DENNIS KUCINICH will be our guest on on Monday September 17! And this hursday September the 13th, we expect to be joined by Charlie Savage, Pulitzer prize winning journalist from the Boston Globe, Charlie’s new book is titled… "Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy."
The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 a.m. Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern). All shows are simulcast on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at BASHAM & CORNELL SHOW
Just by walking into the room she changes people. They must think, "Why doesn't she just shrink into the darkness and fear, and give up? How can her husband think of going on with his life's plan? Doesn't cancer stop all that?" No. It is possible to see cancer as a light: bright, glaring and harsh.Elizabeth shares her husband's deep commitment to improving the daily lives of all Americans and making sure that everyone in this country has the opportunity to succeed. A passionate advocate for children and families, as well as an accomplished attorney, she has been a tireless advocate for many important causes.
Elizabeth is the daughter of a decorated Navy pilot. In her early years, she attended school in Japan, where her father was stationed with a reconnaissance squadron, flying missions over China and North Korea. As an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Elizabeth majored in English. She went on to study American literature but then switched to law, graduating from UNC Law School in May 1977. She met John in law school, and they got married the Saturday after they took the bar exam.
John and Elizabeth have four children, including: their eldest daughter, Catharine, who is attending law school; nine-year-old Emma Claire; and a seven-year-old son, Jack. Their first child, Wade, died in 1996. That same year, John and Elizabeth helped establish the Wade Edwards Foundation, and helped build a free computer lab—the Wade Edwards Learning Lab—for high school students in Raleigh. Recently, the foundation opened a similar computer lab in Goldsboro. Elizabeth volunteered at the lab in Raleigh nearly every day, until the family came to Washington following her husband's 1998 election to the U.S. Senate
The country has gotten to know Elizabeth as she has campaigned extensively across the country during her husband's presidential and vice-presidential campaigns. The day after the general election in 2004, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Elizabeth was in remission until March 2007 when she discovered her cancer had returned. Elizabeth and John made the decision to continue on with the campaign and Elizabeth has kept an active schedule of campaign activities. Elizabeth's courageous battle with breast cancer has served as an inspiration to women across the country. _______________________________________________________________________________________
"The one thing, on which we can all agree, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums and in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. 6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality." --Bono
This small book, based upon the speech given by Bono at the 2006 NPB, delivers an inspiring and powerful message. Here, in Bono's own words, is a reflection on his own faith and a challenge to people of all faiths to reach across boundaries and come together on behalf of what the Scriptures call "the least of these."
"On the Move," is a new book by Bono, the lead singer of U2 and a true visionary in the fight against global poverty and AIDS. This short book is a beautiful hardcover reprint of Bono's magnificent speech to the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast, in which he preaches the biblical imperative to justice as well as the boundless possibilities that emerge "when God gets on the move."
Excerpt from a spiritual thinker:
"I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.
I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.
When politics leads us into entrenched positions that make us resentful of others, we lose our effectiveness. I’ve found that, over and over again. When I'm incensed and angry, and get into arguments with people, absolutely no good comes out of that. So I’ve had to learn from many hard experiences to try to live above just a human position on something.
How can I support a “righteous” government? What’s the best way to support a just government? And I feel that the best way to do that is not through anger, but through willingness to understand, to seek understanding, to express patience and willingness to learn, and to help others learn by your patience. (Of course with Bush and Cheney this is difficult. And they must be held accountable for their numerous crimes.)
I get a lot of inspiration from Gandhi and his approach to politics. And there’s a wonderful story about him, when he went to see the governor of a province in South Africa. Many people may not know that Gandhi really began his political career in South Africa rather than India, where, of course, there was racial discrimination.
And he went to this provincial governor, and told him that he was going to oppose the unjust policies of his government. Well, the provincial governor practically laughed him out of the office, because Gandhi was nobody at that time, and here this man was, very important and powerful. And he said to Gandhi, “Oh, you’re going to oppose me? And how do you propose to do that?” And Gandhi answered, with a smile, “With your help.”
Many years later, the provincial governor wrote that that was exactly how Gandhi did it—through respect, unfailing respect for his opponent, gentleness, persuasion, but it was never through anger, never through scorn or putting someone down, that he won people to his positions.
We want to bring out the good in people. And we don’t do that by offending them and calling them names. We do it by loving the good that’s in everyone, and striving to bring it out. So that’s a challenge I’m striving to live up to every day.
ANOTHER FAVORITE ARTIST: MOBY! I used to listen to "Extreme Ways" over and over, the lyrics of which are brilliant. This is the song that ends each Bourne Identity movie. Moby is a progressive, enlightened Christian like Bono.
I wish I could agree with that. But we took the "high road," and left the gutter to Der Rovesmarschall. We all know what THAT got us.
ReplyDeleteThe terrible thing is, when you call Chimpy names, most of the time it's not mudslinging. It's a recitation of facts.
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteThere are some people who don't deserve our consideration, because it is their expressed purpose in life to ruin ours.
Jolly Roger said...
ReplyDeletecarl said,
Less than one percent, about the same as Christians who think Eric Rudolph is a godsend, Widdle Twucker.
Or do you not know what a "Muslim" is?
Sure he does. They're the same as Blacks, Hispanics, gays, and liberals. All hellbent on having gay sex on a burning American flag that they used to mop up the blood of some Christian they just beheaded.
That's what I figured. I was just making sure he knew we weren't buying his crap
Those are Bono's words. He doesn't think very highly of Bush, but he is proactive, making changes he want to see, and stays out of name calling.
ReplyDeleteHe leaves that to us. And you're right JR, Chimpy needs to be called what he is. A liar and war monger.
Ooops, I was quoting a spiritual article. I reposted Bono's words, and put the other part in quotes.
ReplyDeleteThat last sentence was for you Carl.
ReplyDeleteSorry, those weren't my words.
I adore Bono.
ReplyDeleteHe's the total package: a rock star, liberal politics, great face, great butt, amazing stage presence, inspiring voice, wonderful songwriter, has tons of gay friends -- he's perfect.
Voltron said...
ReplyDeleteAs I posted, I have been there for him since the day he was born. I could not love him more if he were genetically mine. He loves me as well. You tell him he's not my son.
Typical lazy f*cking Republican...wassamatter, beeyatch, shooting blanks?
Or would it have been TOO HARD on your greedy capitalist puritan sensibilities to actually knock up yo' ho?
Cuz if you need lessons, I can show you how to screw the beeyatch properly, but I can guaran-damn-tee you, she'll never come back to you.
ReplyDeleteLyd, I'm confused, which were Bono's words?
ReplyDeleteAnd Bono has a history of name-calling. He might have changed, this is true, but I'd need to see some proof.
Once again Bush shows how clueless he is:
ReplyDeleteSYDNEY, Australia — President Bush had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the Sydney Opera House.
He'd only reached the third sentence of Friday's speech to business leaders, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, when he committed his first gaffe.
"Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit," Bush said to Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
Oops. That would be APEC, the annual meeting of leaders from 21 Pacific Rim nations, not OPEC, the cartel of 12 major oil producers.
Bush quickly corrected himself. "APEC summit," he said forcefully, joking that Howard had invited him to the OPEC summit next year (for the record, an impossibility, since neither Australia nor the U.S. are OPEC members).
The president's next goof went uncorrected _ by him anyway. Talking about Howard's visit to Iraq last year to thank his country's soldiers serving there, Bush called them "Austrian troops."
That one was fixed for him. Though tapes of the speech clearly show Bush saying "Austrian," the official text released by the White House switched it to "Australian."
Then, speech done, Bush confidently headed out _ the wrong way.
He strode away from the lectern on a path that would have sent him over a steep drop. Howard and others redirected the president to center stage, where there were steps leading down to the floor of the theater.
The event had inauspicious beginnings. Bush started 10 minutes late, so that APEC workers could hustle people out of the theater's balcony seating to fill the many empty portions of the main orchestra section below _ which is most visible on camera.
Even resettled, the audience remained quiet throughout the president's remarks, applauding only when he was finished.
AP
ReplyDeleteStocks plunged in early trading while bonds surged higher Friday after the government reported payrolls in August fell for the first time in four years rather than rising as had been expected. The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 140 points.
Investors were unpleasantly surprised by the Labor Department's report that payrolls fell by 4,000 in August, the first decline since August 2003, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.6 percent as expected.
Simply put it is another result of the Bush economy!
Anti-war forces, angered over Congressional failure to bring an end to the Iraq war, are gearing up to run primary challenges against Democratic incumbents who support the Bush administration.
ReplyDeleteFrustration with the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate reached new heights with the appearance of stories describing Democrats' growing willingness to compromise on Iraq legislation, including "Democrats Retreat On War End" in The Politico and "Democrats Newly Willing to Compromise on Iraq" in the New York Times.
Run someone against Pelosi and Reid.
US housing woes deepened in recent months as late payments and foreclosure proceedings rose, a mortgage industry survey showed Thursday.
ReplyDeleteThe Mortgage Bankers Association, which represents banks and other firms in real estate finance, said delinquencies rose in the second quarter to 5.12 percent of loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties, up from 4.84 percent in the prior quarter.
The delinquency rate does not count another 1.4 percent of loans in the foreclosure process in the April-June period, also up from the first quarter.
Moreover, an additional 0.65 percent of loans entered the foreclosure process, the highest in the history of the survey.
The problems stem from the downturn in housing after a years-long bubble in which lenders and borrowers rushed to cash in on rising home prices.
In many cases, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), designed to help borrowers buy properties they might not otherwise afford, are being reset to reflect higher market rates, raising the monthly payments for home buyers.
Some analysts say the problems are not yet over and that more than two million homeowners may face foreclosure in the near future.
Another result of the Bush economy!
Lydia, Great article those are excellent principles to live by, but like i said before idf a rabid dog is bent on killing your children and its the dog or your children, then the rabid dog must be destroyed........we have a rabid dog in power bent on destroying our country.......being nice to the rabid dog or appeasing it wont stop it these clowns have been plotting and scheming for over 30 years, in some cases since Prescott Bush's day, like if left unchecked and unopposed the shadow will only grow...........like Edmund Burke said " All evil needs to prosper is for good men to do nothing.
ReplyDeleteAs for being proactive, I think the majority of us have been.......and therein lies our frustration because the checks and balances are not functioning thanks to Pelosi and Reed............I contact my Congressmen, and Pelosi and Reed at LEAST once a month if not more to no avail.
That being said there has been positive developments Rove and Gonzalez are gone...........But being a realist, i'm frustrated that Impeachment is off the table when these war mongering fascists keep trying to lie and manipulating us into war with Iran based on the same lies and rhetoric they used to lie us into the war/quagmire with Iraq and Congress is too cowardly to oppose them.
Now, on a unrealated matter...............Any predictions on what the Federal Reserve will do on September 18?
ReplyDeleteI think they will leave the Fed Funds rate where it is and cut by either 1/2 point, or 3/4 of a point in October, so Bernanke wont look like he's caving in to the pressure.........plus he has to worry about defending the dollar so he will be hesitant to cut rates until recession is upon us, or at least there is somewhat of a consenus it is upon us or imeninent.
Larry said...
ReplyDeleteAnti-war forces, angered over Congressional failure to bring an end to the Iraq war, are gearing up to run primary challenges against Democratic incumbents who support the Bush administration.
Frustration with the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate reached new heights with the appearance of stories describing Democrats' growing willingness to compromise on Iraq legislation, including "Democrats Retreat On War End" in The Politico and "Democrats Newly Willing to Compromise on Iraq" in the New York Times.
Run someone against Pelosi and Reid."
I'll make a financial contribution to support ANY viable candidate trying to unseat those disgraces.........They NEED to be drummed out of office.
Recession is upon us and the idiot at the Federal Reserve, coupled with the idiot in the White House has made a Modern Day Depression look possible, thus he will cut rates a little.
ReplyDeleteMoveon.org is looking for people to take on the Bush enablers, especially those feeble minded Democrats.
ReplyDeleteBernanke wrote a paper STATING how the Great Depression could have been avoided by the FED taking swift and aggressive action........therefore he will look like a total and complete fool if he DOES NOT take swift and aggressive action to prevent a similar Depression.........I think he will stand pat now, so he doesnt look like he is caving in and pandering to business..........then he will cut aggressively in October or November and not just 1/4 point like Greenspan.........I think ole Helicpter Ben will go 3/4 or even 1/2 a point to catch up and not be behind the curve.
ReplyDeleteMoveon.org is looking for people to take on the Bush enablers, especially those feeble minded Democrats."
ReplyDeleteHopefully they will FIND some good people because it is apparent that the people are as disatisfied with Pelosi and Reed as they are the Neo Con fascists.
Like I always said to Volt regarding America torturing people I hold my own to a higher standard than the enemy, and Pelosi and Reed have failed miserably by ANY standard.
ReplyDeleteBernanke is a complete disgrace and has done nothing but caused problems with the economy.
ReplyDeleteA good fit for the Bush regime.
An independent US government auditor on Friday cast doubt on US military statistics expected to show a huge dip in sectarian violence in Iraq under the current troop surge strategy.
ReplyDeleteComptroller General David Walker said there was a "significant difference" of approach between the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which he heads, and Pentagon evaluations of violence in Iraq.
"The primary difference between us and the military is whether or not violence has been reduced with regard to sectarian violence," Walker told the Senate Armed Services committee.
A GAO report published this week on 18 benchmarks for progress for the Iraqi government set down in law by Congress, found that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's administration had failed to reach targets for cutting violence.
"It is unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased -- a key security benchmark," the report said, pointing to the difficulty in judging whether a killing was sectarian or criminal in nature.
In long-awaited testimony on Monday to Congress on the progress of the surge, Walker said war commander General David Petraeus will cite a large decrease in sectarian violence.
"I think you need to ask him how he defines sectarian violence," Walker told senators.
"The other thing you have to look at is if it's sustainable."
Some reports say Petraeus will argue that sectarian violence in Iraq has fallen by up to 75 percent under the surge.
"We could not get comfortable with (the military's) methodology for determining what's sectarian versus nonsectarian violence," Walker told senators.
In other words Petraeus and Bush are lying again.
Friday’s report on the job market in August — showing the first monthly drop in four years — raised concerns that the recession afflicting the housing sector may be spilling over into the wider economy. The much weaker-than expected employment report puts added pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at its next scheduled meeting Sept. 18.
ReplyDeleteBut it’s still too soon to assess just how much long-term damage will be caused by the downturn in housing prices and the mortgage mess that has rocked the financial markets.
Friday’s employment report was a stunner: Economists and market watchers had expected the report to show some 110,000 new jobs created in August. But the government tallied a net loss of 4,000 jobs, the first monthly drop since August 2003. The government also revised job gains reported earlier for June and July, cutting the numbers for those two months by 81,000 jobs.
George W Bush:The Recession President.
Dolty is presently crying in his Pabst Blue Ribbon over his monkey Messiah's decision to let those smelly brown people drive trucks in America. On the bright side, now Dolty, too, stands a good chance of getting paid what he thinks everybody else ought to make.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that called Karma!
ReplyDeleteThose are very good quotes. It's too bad more people don't live by them, regardless of the views they express.
ReplyDeleteWho Hijacked Our Country
Check out Alicia's latest post:
ReplyDeleteLast Left Before Hooterville
Carl said ... "Typical lazy f*cking Republican...wassamatter, beeyatch, shooting blanks?
ReplyDeleteOr would it have been TOO HARD on your greedy capitalist puritan sensibilities to actually knock up yo' ho?"
Um, I think that one's out of line Carl.
Lord knows I'm never going to be accused of being Voltron's biggest fan but adoption is a good thing ... and millions of people of all political and religious beliefs have medical issues that keep people from having children.
Insult a person all you want but remember that blanket characterizations can apply to your friends as well as your enemies. Also, my personal belief is wives and children should be excluded from the personal attacks ... I hate it when politicians do it and hate it even more when we do it.
There's nothing righteous about Bush and Cheneye that's for sure..
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit confused here. It seems every recent picture I see of Bono is with bush joined at his hip. Am I missing something or is he just another lying bush lover?
ReplyDeleteAnd I really am just asking.
...it is apparent that the people are as disatisfied with Pelosi and Reed as they are the Neo Con fascists.
ReplyDeleteMike,
I think it's entirely reasonable to see the voters in 2008 punish the Democrats for Pelosi and Reid's failure to stop funding the war in Iraq and for not ordering the Articles of Impeachment.
This strategy of not rocking the boat and making nicey-nicey with Bush so they can get a few crumbs like minimum wage, has turned the electorate furious.
mch,
ReplyDeleteJust turning the tables on the painter with the wide brush. That's all.
Chinese military hackers have prepared a detailed plan to disable America’s aircraft battle carrier fleet with a devastating cyber attack, according to a Pentagon report obtained by The Times.
ReplyDeleteThe blueprint for such an assault, drawn up by two hackers working for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is part of an aggressive push by Beijing to achieve “electronic dominance” over each of its global rivals by 2050, particularly the US, Britain, Russia and South Korea.
China’s ambitions extend to crippling an enemy’s financial, military and communications capabilities early in a conflict, according to military documents and generals’ speeches that are being analysed by US intelligence officials. Describing what is in effect a new arms race, a Pentagon assessment states that China’s military regards offensive computer operations as “critical to seize the initiative” in the first stage of a war.
The plan to cripple the US aircraft carrier battle groups was authored by two PLA air force officials, Sun Yiming and Yang Liping. It also emerged this week that the Chinese military hacked into the US Defence Secretary’s computer system in June; have regularly penetrated computers in at least 10 Whitehall departments, including military files, and infiltrated German government systems this year.
And Communist China is a friend of Bush's!
Does anyone believe this?
ReplyDeleteThe No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. Senate said on Friday he could no longer vote for funding the war in Iraq unless restrictions were attached that would begin winding down American involvement there.
“This Congress can’t give President (George W.) Bush another blank check for Iraq,” said Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, who has always opposed the war but until now voted to fund it.
“I can’t support an open-ended appropriation which allows this president to continue this failed policy,” he said in a speech at the left-leaning Center for National Policy.
Durbin, from Illinois, said he and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin were working on limits that could be attached to the next war funding bill, such as limiting troops to conducting counterterrorism operations and training Iraqi security forces.
August 31, Juan Cole was shrill about administration and media statements that GI deaths in Iraq were down for the year. His point was that temperatures get to 120 degrees, so summer means low combat. He produced a table contrasting 2006 with 2007 by month: deaths are higher in 2007 than 2006. He asked for a visual display and many responded. I’m posting mine here.
ReplyDeleteBut this is just part of a pattern of communicating, where true facts are presented within a limited context, so that the resulting asymmetry of information creates a false impression. Most of us don’t know that Iraq temperatures reach 120 degrees in July so that physical activity like combat is down. On the other hand, if an official announced that lowland US snow fall in July was the lowest it’s been all year — duh. The difference is that here in the US we all know about July snow fall, so there’s no asymmetry.
President Bush’s trademark struggles with the finer points of public speaking were on full display Friday, when he thanked his “Austrian” hosts for inviting him to this year’s “OPEC” summit.
ReplyDeleteThe “Language Mangler-in-Chief” was in Australia attending the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit. Along with misidentifying his host country and the name of the summit, Bush struggled to leave the lectern, trying to exit the stage the wrong way.
“Thank you for being such a fine host of the OPEC summit,” Bush said to Australian prime minister John Howard. He quickly corrected himself, “APEC summit,” and joked Howard “invited me to the OPEC summit next year. (Such an invitation would be impossible because neither the US or Australia are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.)
Later in the speech, Bush can clearly be heard on tape thanking Howard for visiting “Austrian troops” in Iraq last year, but White House scrubbers fixed that gaffe for him, changing the official government transcript to “Australian,” the Associated Press reported.
That's called dumbspeak.
(Reuters) - Countrywide Financial Corp, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, said on Friday it plans to cut 10,000 to 12,000 jobs to cope with weak housing demand, rising foreclosures and tightening credit markets.
ReplyDeleteThe cuts, which amount to as much as 20 percent of the lender's work force, will be completed over the next three months and include reductions already made, Countrywide said.
They constitute the largest work force reduction announced this year in the U.S. mortgage industry, which has lost more than 50,000 jobs after loan delinquencies rose, home price appreciation stalled, and investors stopped buying many kinds of home loans.
It's still the Bush economy!
America's truthteller Bill Mayer is on tonight.
ReplyDeleteWhat would the founding fathers have thought of George W. Bush?
ReplyDeleteBy Juan Cole
Founders v. Bush is a comparison in quotations of the policies and politics of the Founding Fathers and the administration of George W. Bush. See what
the Founders really thought about the Constitution, Liberty, Patriotism, Religion, War, Truth, Lies, Wealth, and more...in their own words.
Here's a few good ones (600 more in the book)
GEORGE WASHINGTON
"Beware of pretend patriotism." - Farewell Address, 1796
JOHN ADAMS
"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws." - letter to Jefferson, 1816
THOMAS JEFFERSON
"By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves." - letter to John Melish, 1813
JAMES MADISON
"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad." -
letter to Jefferson, 1798
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
"Being ignorant is not such a shame as being unwilling to learn." - Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758
Good quotes Clif!
ReplyDeleteIt's about time somebody actually tries to pare back Chimpy's blank checks.
ReplyDeleteBut in the land of "Stepnfetchit" and "Persuadable," I'll believe it when I see it.
$50 Billion More for War, No Money for Veterans
ReplyDeleteby Aaron Glantz
The Bush Administration is demanding Congress give it $50 billion more to fight the war in Iraq (bringing the cost of war to about $200 billion this year) … At them same time, outgoing Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson is telling Congress the President doesn’t want any additional funding for health care for veterans. According to the Navy Times, Bush is even talking about vetoing parts of the budget if Congress insists on increasing funding for the 1.6 million veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Never mind that the VA currently has a backlog of more than 400,000 disability claims.
After tens of thousands of wounded veterans from Bush's illegal war, and hundreds of thousands of veterans needing PTSD counsuling, and the incredible backlog (from the Iraq war Bush started) has created in the VA, along with the Walter Reed scandal, and the stories of veterans getting discharged for "pre-existing conditions" to keep them from recieving proper medical care for wounds from their service in Iraq, not to mention the inability for most veterans to find adequate medical care once the system cuts them off and throws them away, .... you would think the reichwing would finally do the HONORABLE thing and give the veterans what they earned, ... especially since so many on the right are gutless chicken hawks.
The reichwing loves to screech they support the troops, too bad when the troops really need some support the reichwing is AWOL as usual.
Clif,
ReplyDeleteWonderful!
New Gore book to set out inconvenient solutions
ReplyDeleteThe former US vice-president Al Gore is working on a new book about the environment as a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, his Oscar-winning film about global warming.
The Path to Survival will be published next spring to coincide with Earth Day on April 22.
According to the publisher, Rodale Books, Gore will spell out a blueprint for the changes that individuals and governments need to make to avoid catastrophic climate change.
In a statement it said the book would explain how "bold choices now to protect our environment will also create new jobs, propel sustainable economic improvements, and inspire a new generation to tackle our most challenging issues with moral leadership".
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It said the book would be, "part scientific manual, part exposé, part visionary call for a new planet-wide political movement".
Rodale said Path to Survival would "appeal to those who were motivated by the call to action of An Inconvenient Truth and who are now ready to fight for the solutions that were considered politically impossible only a short time ago".
As yet there are no plans to turn the book into a movie.
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else"
ReplyDelete- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
Great posts Clif!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe designs of moralism:
ReplyDeleteWhen Senator Larry Craig's daughter went public on ABC's Good Morning America to defend her father, she may have gotten a bit more publicity than she bargained for.
Following the show's airing, a reader of Idaho's Boise Guardian tipped the website that there was a warrant for Shae Suzanne Howell's arrest.
"We checked with officials at the jail and according to their records the contempt of court warrant is active," the Guardian reported. "
Like father like daughter.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
ReplyDeleteDoes Shae Suzanne Howell have a wide stance like her daddy too?
In recent days, NBC, CNN, and Fox News have all aired reports or discussed the case of Norman Hsu, who The Wall Street Journal suggested may have funneled illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Hillary Clinton. However, when Mitt Romney's national finance committee co-chairman Alan Fabian was charged with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice, the three networks did not report or discuss it during programs available in the Nexis database.
ReplyDeleteWhat about this Romney link to corruption.
Christopher:
ReplyDeleteObviously it runs in the family of moralists.
Mounted police charged in to break up an outdoor press conference and demonstration against the Iraq war in Washington on Thursday, arresting three people, organizers and an AFP reporter said.
ReplyDelete"The police suppressed the press conference. In the middle of the speeches, they grabbed the podium" erected in a park in front of the White House for the small gathering, Brian Becker, national organizer of the ANSWER anti-war coalition, told AFP.
"Then, mounted police charged the media present to disperse them," Becker said.
The charge caused a peaceful crowd of some 20 journalists and four or five protestors to scatter in terror, an AFP correspondent at the event in Lafayette Square said. No one appeared to have been hurt.
Three people -- Tina Richards, the mother of a marine who did two tours of duty in Iraq; Adam Kokesh, a leader of the Iraq Veterans Against the War group; and lawyer Ian Thompson, who is an organizer for ANSWER in Los Angeles -- were arrested, Becker said.
The ANSWER coalition is trying to rally support for an anti-war demonstration in Washington that is due to take place on September 15.
Last month, the movement was threatened with a fine of at least 10,000 dollars unless it removed posters in the city announcing the September 15 march.
Only in Bush's Nazi Version of America!
Salon.com
ReplyDeleteThe Petraeus road show will roll into Washington with dubious claims that troop increases have reduced violence.
When Gen. David Petraeus testifies Monday on the effects of the American troop escalation in Iraq, don’t expect him to dwell on the strategic irrelevance of the “surge,” which was supposed to revive chances for political reconciliation among that country’s warring ethnic and religious factions. Were the surge to be judged by that original metric — a reduction in violence sufficient to encourage real cooperation among the warring sides — then it has certainly failed so far.
The commanding general can be expected to sidestep such unpleasant topics and to focus attention instead on Anbar province, which President Bush himself has declared an exemplary “success” — and on the Pentagon’s hotly disputed casualty and incident statistics, which supposedly prove the value of the surge.
As the most astute journalists have observed, there are few sources, if any, for reliable data about Iraqi civilian deaths, whether at the hands of sectarian killers or ordinary criminals (or the police/militia forces that the United States has armed and trained). It requires truly extraordinary gullibility on the part of mainstream reporters to accept any such statistics from the Pentagon, whose leaders have misled us so badly about Iraq from the beginning. Where civilian casualties are concerned, it is worth recalling that the Pentagon and the Bush administration initially did not bother to count them — or at least refused to release whatever counts they had compiled. Estimating the number of civilian dead and wounded was left to nongovernmental sources such as Iraq Body Count and the Lancet, the renowned British medical journal.
But now the White House and the Pentagon, up against growing domestic pressure for withdrawal from Iraq, would like to convince us that they have happy numbers showing that more U.S. troops has meant fewer dead Iraqis. The underlying methodology may be highly questionable, as the Government Accountability Office has argued. (Petraeus has retorted that the GAO methodology is wrong because it makes the same alleged mistakes as the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency — a somewhat confusing response, since the DIA is the Pentagon’s own agency.) The data may be subjected to massaging, coloring, lipsticking and a host of other cosmetic procedures, as the Washington Post noted Thursday in an important story by foreign editor Karen DeYoung.
The Petraeus troop of liars: Coming to a TV screen near you.
Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:
ReplyDelete___
ABC's "This Week" — Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and John Kerry, D-Mass.
___
CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft.
___
NBC's "Meet the Press" — Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones; Charles Ramsey, former Washington, D.C., police chief; Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.
___
CNN's "Late Edition" — White House homeland security adviser Frances Frago Townsend; presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie; retired Army Gen. George Joulwan.
___
Sen. Chuck Hagel is set to announce Monday that he is retiring from the Senate and that he won’t join the race for the White House in 2008, the Omaha World-Herald newspaper reported on its Web site Friday night, citing “people close” to the Republican from Nebraska.
ReplyDeleteThe newspaper reported that Hagel told Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of his decision on Friday morning. The Nebraskan’s staff learned of the decision Friday afternoon, the World-Herald reported.
Another two-faced neocon biting the dust.
LArry, Lydia, what do you think of the timing of Judge Lamberth's ruling?!!
ReplyDelete(re Bono, he is a sell-out; he is the illusion that the politicians and rock musicians intend to make teh world better! He is sleeping around with these notorious politicians for a few bucks, to legitimize them?! I won't buy his music anymore!)
naj said,
ReplyDelete(re Bono, he is a sell-out; he is the illusion that the politicians and rock musicians intend to make teh world better! He is sleeping around with these notorious politicians for a few bucks, to legitimize them?! I won't buy his music anymore!)
I'm with naj on this one. And I have been for a long time now. Some folks think that engaging these guys will affect change for the better, but they should know by now it does nothing but gives these scumbags extra publicity.
No wonder Feinstein loves war:
ReplyDeleteMove over Bridge to Nowhere. Congress is back in town, and clearly back to business even uglier than usual.
It takes hard work to come up with an earmark more egregious than that infamous Alaskan bridge, but California’s Dianne Feinstein is an industrious gal. Her latest pork–let’s call it Rambo’s View–deserves to be the poster child for everything wrong with today’s greedy earmark process.
The senator’s $4 billion handout (yes, you read that right) to wealthy West L.A. (yes, you read that right, too) is the ultimate example of how powerful members use earmarks to put their own parochial interests above national ones–in this case the needs of veterans. It’s a case study in how Congress uses the appropriations process to substitute its petty wants for the considered judgments of agency professionals. And it’s just the latest proof that, no matter how much outrage the American public might display over these deals–and no matter how often Congress promises to clean up its act–the elected have no intention of reforming the process.
Ms. Feinstein, who in the last election received some of her largest donations from the rich area, has been only too happy to come to its defense. She honed in on the military construction and veterans affairs bill–a sensitive spending vehicle that few Republicans would dare vote against, and that President Bush would be loath to veto. She then slipped in an earmark provision that would bar the VA from disposing or leasing any of the ground. Thus a potential $4 billion worth of help and aid for our nation’s veterans goes bye-bye in the name of preserving a view for those Hollywood actors who play veterans in the movies.
(Reuters) - Bombs killed 20 people in Iraq on Saturday including 15 in Baghdad, police said, as U.S. President George W. Bush said he would address Americans next week to "lay out a vision" for the future U.S. role in Iraq.
ReplyDeletePolice said a parked car exploded near a police station in Baghdad's Shi'ite area of Sadr City at dusk, when people were shopping. The blast killed 15 people and wounded 45, they said.
Chuck - I changed the Bono picture. I used that old one with Bush just to point out the difference between the two types of public servants.
ReplyDeleteNaj and Jolly Roger - I think Bono bringing attention to the humanitarian and AIDS crisis in Africa is to be admired.
ReplyDeleteHis fan base would never think in these terms if he wasn't stepping out of his comfort zone and entering the world stage.
If he can get a money committment from Bush, or any prime minister GREAT!
I do hate to see him in photos with Bush though. and I agree he has watered down and homogenized his radical calling by partnering up with certain companies, but he and Opra and the ONE movement, everything he does is charitable and Christian.
He is not political as much as Christian, in the true sense of the word.
Naj - I was in Beirut visiting the troops right before the Marine barracks bombing. I received letters from the sons of these soldiers, and one letter broke my heart. The boy, 13, had been a toddler when his dad died and the boy himself was dying of cancer. He wanted me to describe his father to him.
ReplyDeleteI know the truck bombing was Hezbollah and it was one of the first ever major suicide attacks against us. But I have no idea if Iran was involved, I'm not a student of this case.
What do you think, Naj?
We were there as international peacekeeping force with all the major allies.
So I feel that Lamberth's ruling gave some symbolic relief to the familes.
Lydia, another excellent article. I have often said that, were Jesus to walk the earth today, as he did 2000 years ago, he would not be welcome in America's churches, because they would not want to associate with the people he would choose as his friends.
ReplyDeleteDuring the 20 years of FAIR’s existence, there have been two periods when mainstream journalists made promises about dedicating themselves to greater coverage of poverty, racism and inequality. The first followed the Los Angeles riots of 1992 (Extra!, 7-8/92); the second was after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans (Extra!, 7-8/06).Both promises went largely unfulfilled.
ReplyDeleteFollowing Katrina, national news coverage of poverty increased in September 2005 before returning to a normal, almost undetectable baseline. According to the Tyndall Report, a newsletter that tracks what’s covered on the nightly network news, poverty reporting increased in the eight months following Katrina from two-and-a-half seconds per night…to four seconds per night. In other words, poverty coverage in the period following the catastrophe increased from 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent of the average 22-minute nightly newscast.
A FAIR study released September 7 found that in just over three years (9/11/03 - 10/30/06) the major TV networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, broadcast only 58 stories dealing with poverty in more than a passing mention.
Why so little coverage of poverty? For one, journalists like a story to have a resolution, preferably a happy one. Often journalists see poverty as a sad, intractable fact of life, a story that never gets better and generates little interest or news.
And a more important preference than journalist’s personal tastes is at work: Advertisers don’t much like stories, such as poverty, which they see as downers–or as putting people in a non-shopping mood. (That’s why CBS offered to air “upbeat images or messages about the war, like patriotic views from the home front,” to buffer advertisements from the reality of the Gulf War–New York Times, 2/7/91.)
In an online chat (8/28/06), Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz explained that “news outlets tend far too often to cover what politicians are talking about,” neglecting things “they can’t solve.” Kurtz added that Katrina “highlighted the extent to which the mainstream press had stopped writing about race and big-city poverty,” because “somewhere along the way those subjects were deemed to be unfashionable.”
Kurtz didn’t say in that chat why such stories are “deemed unfashionable.” But he further illuminated why advertisers don’t like poverty coverage in a review (2/19/07) of a rare poverty special hosted by Diane Sawyer on ABC’s 20/20 (1/26/07). According to Kurtz, the 20/20 special, focusing on poor youth in Camden, N.J., “examined a subject that has largely vanished from the media, deemed depressing and unappealing to the affluent viewers prized by advertisers.” Kurtz added that “Sawyer says she and her team had to overcome ‘a feeling on the part of a lot of people that no one would watch and there was not a way to give these kids a voice.’”
In the end, it shouldn’t be surprising that news that is produced by powerful corporations, closely interconnected with other powerful corporate and governmental institutions, produces news that makes such powerful institutions look good. When the powerful get to tell the stories, with few exceptions, they tend to shift the responsibility for social ills away from the circle of powerful decision-makers. As blame is assigned downward, as it were, the bulk of the responsibility for social ills is laid at the feet of the least powerful–the poor, people of color and immigrants.
Commercial television news will likely continue operating on the assumptions that the poverty narrative is just not interesting and that Americans don’t care about inequality. But it’s worth noting that these assumptions are not accurate. A 2006 Syracuse University study revealed that more than 80 percent of Americans viewed income inequality as either a “serious problem” or “somewhat of a problem.” Which makes media excuses for scant poverty coverage little more than cop-outs for neglecting the most vulnerable and powerless among us.
George Carlin starts out slamming America's education system and moves on to how the corporations and business interests have Americans "by the balls." Carlin says the people that run this country want nothing more than "obedient workers" and now they want our social security money and retirement. "It's a big club and you and I aren't in it," says Carlin.
ReplyDeleteSo True!
Bush still hates children, especially poor children:
ReplyDeleteThe Bush administration on Friday rejected a request from New York State to expand its children’s health insurance program to cover 70,000 more uninsured youngsters, including some from middle-income families.
The ruling was the first application of a restrictive new White House policy that has drawn ferocious criticism from Democrats since it was announced last month. New York wanted to expand its program to cover children in families with incomes up to four times as much as the federal poverty level, or $82,600 for a family of four. The state’s current limit is 250 percent of the poverty level.
Federal officials said the change would divert resources from lower-income children and “crowd out” private health insurance.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer denounced the ruling as “a cruel blow to New York’s uninsured children, and to uninsured families across the country.”
In an interview, Mr. Spitzer said New York was preparing a lawsuit to challenge the new policy, contending that it violates the intent of the federal law that created the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 1997.
In addition, he said, the policy was adopted without the required period for public notice and comment.
The New York proposal would have added 70,000 children to the state’s program, which now covers 390,000.
The new federal policy sets a number of requirements for states that want to cover children with family incomes exceeding 250 percent of the poverty level.
Those who hoped that — with the victory of the antiwar party in 2006, the departure of Rumsfeld and the neocons from the Pentagon, the rise of Condi and the eclipse of Cheney — America was headed out of Iraq got a rude awakening. They are about to get another.
ReplyDeleteToday, the United States has 30,000 more troops in Iraq than on the day America repudiated the Bush war policy and voted the GOP out of power. And President Bush, self-confidence surging, is now employing against Iran a bellicosity redolent of the days just prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
What gives Bush his new cockiness? The total collapse of the antiwar coalition on Capitol Hill and the breaking of the Congress.
Last spring, Bush vetoed the congressional deadlines for troop withdrawals, then rubbed Congress' nose in its defeat by demanding and getting $100 billion to support the surge and continue the war.
Before the August recess, Democrats broke again and voted to give Bush the warrantless wiretap authority many among them had said was an unconstitutional and impeachable usurpation of power. They are a broken and frightened lot.
Comes now evidence congressional Democrats have not only lost the pro-victory vote, but forfeited the peace vote, as well.
Thanks for nothing Pelosi and Reid.
A sharp drop in foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds over the last five weeks has raised concerns that China is quietly withdrawing its funds from the United States, leaving the dollar increasingly vulnerable.
ReplyDeleteChina threatens `nuclear option' of dollar sales
Data released by the New York Federal Reserve shows that foreign central banks have cut their stash of US Treasuries by $48bn since late July, with falls of $32bn in the last two weeks alone.
"This comes as a big surprise and it is definitely worrying," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.
"We won't know if China is behind this until the Treasury releases its TIC data in November, but what it does show is that world central banks are in a hurry to get out of the US. They don't seem to be switching into other currencies, so it is possible they are moving into gold instead. Gold is now gaining momentum across all currencies and has broken through resistance at 500 euros," he said.
While the greenback has been resilient over recent weeks - even regaining something of a 'safe-haven' role as banks scrambled to buy the currency to cover dollar debts - most experts believe that America's $850bn current account deficit will eventually cause the dollar to resume its relentless slide.
David Powell, an economist at IDEAglobal in New York, pointed the finger at Beijing as the main suspect in the sudden bond flight this summer.
In a client note entitled "Has China started to dump US Treasuries?", he said the sales appear to coincide with early moves by Beijing to launch its new $300bn sovereign wealth fund.
Bush is off making wars where he doesn't belong, and the real enemy is quietly working to further destroy the U.S economy.
Dear Lydia:
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of "symbolic Relief" to families.
Has the honorable judge and the rest of the honorable Americans been reminded of the fact that the US navy shot down an Iranian civilian passenger Air Bus in the Persian gulf? And that the man who gave teh "fire" order was decorated for his bravery?!
I am still HAUNTED by teh images of new born dismembered infant floating on the water!
Did Iran "retaliate"??
In 1983, Iran was DEFENDING itself against Iraq! Americans were supporting Iraq in its fight against Iran. Shall I remind you of the America's silence when Iranians were being chemically bombed by their "then" ally, Saddam?
In 1983, Hizbollah attacked America, not Iran!
Iran is not Hizbollah!
Iran was fighting her own war in her own borders.
SYMBOLIC relief! BASED ON WHAT EVIDENCE????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I adore Bono! He is such an inspiration..
ReplyDeleteThanks Lydia for posting this tribute to him!
:)
Lydia said,
ReplyDeleteNaj and Jolly Roger - I think Bono bringing attention to the humanitarian and AIDS crisis in Africa is to be admired.
His fan base would never think in these terms if he wasn't stepping out of his comfort zone and entering the world stage.
If he can get a money committment from Bush, or any prime minister GREAT!
I'm more enamored of Henry Rollins and (especially) Jello Biafra. They are still the same people they always were, still saying the same things. They never did get the kind of riches and publicity Bono has gotten, but they haven't backed away an INCH from their starting points.
Hi again,
ReplyDeleteJust in case I wasn't clear, and to answer your Question about Iran's role in the bombing:
"NO", Iranians had no motive to attack Americans in 1983.
You speak about the pain of American families victim to terrorism. How much do you think INNOCENT Iraqis will have to be compensated to receive a "symbolic" relief?
Lets say, 2.6 billion for 1000 American families.
How much for 600,000 Iraqi ones?!
Re Bono: Kudos for all his doings, I think he would be better off if he dared fighting the pharmaceuticals, who receive OUR tax money to do R&D on AIDS, and then patent the drug for 20 years until they have RECOVERED the money, before allowing cheap production of teh drug used by the "lesser" people!
I really miss the U2 of the "War" era.
ReplyDeleteI played that cassette completely to death (and each side of it was the album in its entirety, so you know I was playing it hard.)
I remember 1983 pretty well too.
ReplyDeleteAs Sp4 Roger, I (and the rest of us) thought the barracks bombing meant that we'd be turning our attention away from Nicaragua. Turns out we were wrong, of course.
I think it was a horrible idea to sit MArines where we sat them (and it was the Druze who blew them up, FWIW) but Reagan did the right thing by not escalating.
Lydia, the Peace-keeping you talk about and seek symbolic relief for has a resounding similarity to the "liberate the Iraqis" operation.
ReplyDeleteJR,
ReplyDeleteIslamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing, but they turned out to be a front for Hezbollah, which was operating as an underground terror organization at that time, which, contrary to Naj's post, was receiving funding from Iran even back then.
Iran funded the attacks in response to America's support of Saddam Hussein, according to Hala Jaber, and indeed, a week before the attacks, Iran warned the US about them, pubicly, saying that continued funding of their enemy would cause retaliation.
Naj, please forgive me for saying the wrong thing, and not knowing all the facts. I had to quickly look up the Lamberth decision to see what you were referring to, and I wrote that in a hurry.
ReplyDeleteObviously I don't know what I'm talking about. Haven't had time to study the issue.
But I know Hezbollah is not Iran.
Thanks Naj, I just wrote a 350 page book, so I'm burned out.
Peace
Naj Oh, I get it, and it pisses me off. Bush has timed this to coincide with his anti-Iran campaign.
ReplyDeleteDisgusting.
I have to open up the dialogue about the nukes that flew over our country "by accident" the other day, on their way to a base that preps for the Middle East.
Pray
Hi Lydia,
ReplyDelete:) I am burnt out too I guess, having to do the kind of writing that earns me a living; and having to yell and scream whenever I see people are being dis-informed about Iran.
Forgive my ignorance, have you a little post about your book anywhere? I like to take a peak at what it is about.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLydia, I agree with this post. I think there should be more effort made to find "win-win" situations that benefit all sides, rather than it being a zero-sum game.
ReplyDeleteLydia- it wasn't your picture. What I was saying is that every recent picture I see of Bono is with bush.
ReplyDeleteIslamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing, but they turned out to be a front for Hezbollah, which was operating as an underground terror organization at that time, which, contrary to Naj's post, was receiving funding from Iran even back then.
ReplyDeleteIran funded the attacks in response to America's support of Saddam Hussein, according to Hala Jaber, and indeed, a week before the attacks, Iran warned the US about them, pubicly, saying that continued funding of their enemy would cause retaliation.
Like so much else Middle Eastern, there was a lot of dispute about that close to the ground. People local to the situation felt that the Druze carried out the attack because of support for the Christian Gemayel; some thought Iran bankrolled it at the time, and some thought it was mostly a homegrown (read: Syrian) controlled operation.
Music asuide Bono has set an example that all of humanity would do well to follow and the entire world would be a better place.
ReplyDeleteI loe hopw you woe this all together....Moby;s Extreme Ways to St.Francis to Bono...I think Bono is one of the few real stars to do what his heart tells him...I think he truly does see his fame as a spiritual journey ( he and U2 do have a book about this- I can't find- we bought it at Borders about a year ago...and it is amazing how spiritually driven they are- esp The Edge and Bono...) thank you for a wonderful post...Hey to Larry....also...thanks...
ReplyDeleteI like Bono. He doesn't get involved in the political debates though, which can be both good and bad.
ReplyDeleteInsurgent attacks against Iraqi civilians, their security forces and U.S. troops remain high, according to the document obtained by The Associated Press. It is a conclusion that the well-regarded Army officer who is the top U.S. commander in Iraq is expected to try to counter when he and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, testify before Congress on Monday and Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteMore than four years into a conflict initially thought to be a cakewalk, the war has become a battle of statistics, graphs and conflicting assessments of progress in a country of more than 27 million people.
The defense intelligence chart makes the point, with figures from Petraeus' command in Baghdad, the Multinational Force-Iraq. Congressional auditors used the same numbers to conclude that Iraqis are as unsafe now as they were six months ago; the Bush administration and military officials also using those figures say that finding is flawed.
With so much depending on how the statistics are collected and interpreted, policymakers in Washington are confused.
Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, summed up the situation during a hearing last week on the report by congressional auditors at the Government Accountability Office.
"What is really going on? What standards should we look at? Where do we go from here?" asked Skelton, D-Mo.
For every positive step, a negative one follows.
Nearly 77 percent of Iraqis want the militias in Iraq to be dissolved, according to the GAO, yet their government has not written legislation to do so.
While the rights of Iraq's minority political parties are protected in the legislature, the GAO said violence against minority religious and ethnic groups continues "unabated" in most areas of Iraq.
The report used the defense intelligence's countrywide figures to conclude that the average number of daily attacks against civilians has remained "about the same" during the past six months.
The auditors could not determine if sectarian violence had declined since the start of the president's troop increase.
The agency's findings are contentious because the Bush administration and military officials in Iraq have said security has improved over the same period due to the additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Baghdad and other trouble spots.
"There's a difference of opinion - a strong difference of opinion - as to whether or not sectarian violence has decreased," David Walker, who heads the auditing agency, said last week.
In a letter to his troops Friday, Petraeus acknowledged progress has been "uneven," but said sectarian violence has fallen considerably. The number of attacks across the country has declined in eight of the past 11 weeks, he said. The letter from Petraeus does not provide any figures.
According to the DIA chart, there were 897 attacks against Iraqi civilians in January and 808 in July. There were 946 attacks against Iraqi security forces in January and 850 in July.
An attack is defined as a violent act that may or may not produce casualties.
Coalition forces, which include more than 160,000 U.S. troops, were attacked the most. Slightly more than 3,300 attacks were recorded in January and 3,143 were reported in July, the DIA said.
No matter what they say, Iraq is a disaster.
Bush asking for trouble:
ReplyDeleteThe Pentagon is preparing to build a base near the Iraq-Iran border in an effort to stem the flow of "advanced Iranian weaponry" to Shiite militants in Iraq, according to Monday's edition of the Wall Street Journal.
"The push also includes construction of fortified checkpoints on the major highways leading from the Iranian border to Baghdad and the installation of X-ray machines and explosives-detecting sensors at the only formal border crossing between Iran and Iraq," the Journal said.
McClatchy:
ReplyDeleteThe international aid group Oxfam reported in July that only 30 percent of Iraqis have access to clean water, compared with 50 percent in 2003 — and tens of thousands of Iraqis are fleeing their homes each month in search of safety.
Iraqi security forces remain heavily infiltrated by militias, and political leaders continue to intervene in their activities.
Civilian deaths haven’t decreased in any significant way across the country, according to statistics from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, and numbers gathered by McClatchy Newspapers show no consistent downward trend even in Baghdad, despite military assertions to the contrary. The military has provided no hard numbers to back the claim.
The progress in al Anbar has little to do with the 4,000 U.S. troops who were sent to Anbar as part of the surge of 30,000 additional troops to Iraq. Instead, it began more than four months earlier, with the formation last September of the Anbar Salvation Council.
Speaking of the number of Iraqi deaths since the surge, an official in the ministry who spoke anonymously because he wasn’t authorized to release numbers said those numbers were heavily manipulated. The official said 1,980 Iraqis had been killed in July and that violent deaths soared in August, to 2,890. (I knew that August number was way off)
I could go on and on and on…..but I’ll stop here. We all know about the doctor’s fleeing the country or being kidnapped and killed, we all know about the millions of Iraqis who have fled the country. We all know about the Iraqi’s who are still in country and have nowhere to flee. We all know about Baghdad becoming walled off into seperate little neighborhood “prisons.”
AP:
ReplyDeleteThe war in Iraq is not over, but one legacy is already here in this city and others across America: an epidemic of brain-damaged soldiers.
Thousands of troops have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, or TBI. These blast-caused head injuries are so different from the ones doctors are used to seeing from falls and car crashes that treating them is as much faith as it is science.
“I’ve been in the field for 20-plus years dealing with TBI. I have a very experienced staff. And they’re saying to me, ‘We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before,’” said Sandy Schneider, director of Vanderbilt University’s brain injury rehabilitation program.
Doctors also are realizing that symptoms overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder, and that both must be treated. Odd as it may seem, brain injury can protect against PTSD by blurring awareness of what happened.
But as memory improves, emotional problems can emerge: One of the first “graduates” of Vanderbilt’s program committed suicide three weeks later.
“Of all the ones here, he would not have been the one we would have thought,” Schneider said. “They called him the Michelangelo of Fort Campbell” — a guy who planned to go to art school.
As more troops return from the war, brain injuries are a growing burden — for them, for the few programs to treat them, and for taxpayers who pay for their care and disability if they cannot hold jobs.
Did you ever think about these soldiers Bush?
Financial Times:
ReplyDeleteMore than one in seven US homebuyers with subprime loans failed to keep up with mortgage payments in the second quarter, in a sign of growing distress in the housing market.
More than 619,000 homeowners – or 1.4 per cent of all those with mortgages – face the prospect of repossession, up from 1.28 per cent in the first quarter, according to estimates by the Mortgage Bankers’ Association. Total delinquencies rose to their highest level since 2002 – by 0.28 percentage points to 5.12 per cent of all mortgages.
The data indicates an acceleration in the troubles in US mortgage markets, and covers the period before last month’s credit squeeze raised the cost of borrowing.
Most of the rise in foreclosures came from growing numbers of seriously delinquent adjustable-rate subprime, and prime, mortgages. Economists expect foreclosure rates to increase dramatically as subprime loans re-set to higher rates in the coming months.
Some Federal Reserve policymakers also privately see comparisons between the current distress in credit markets and the bank runs of the 19th century, in which savers lost confidence in banks and demanded their money back, creating a spiralling liquidity crisis for institutions that had invested this money in longer-term assets.
More results of the Bush economy!
Larry,
ReplyDeleteThe checkpoints do not worry me. As for setting up X-ray machines and etc! Uhmm ... how about fixing the bridges in America and the X-ray machines in America first!
Let them huff and puff and bluff! I assume for the average believers of GW Bush, who have not seen the world, Iraq has only one highway, and a narrow pathway between Iran and Iraq!
And anyways, Iranians are used to American spying stations being set up in Kweit and Arab Emarats, so nothing's chaning for Iranians. Just more contracts will be granted to do useless work to Bush and Cheney's Haliburtons of the world!
I am a researcher, and I very well know how the government money (your taxes) can get WASTED on STUPID projects, presented by clever salesmen, to STUPID officials!
This is another one of those :)
and to add to that, when the government funded projects hire and expert to run audit and efficiency measures, and that auditor FINDS flaws in the way money was spent, he/she gets fired and black listed. These CLEVER auditors end up in the private sector, advising the businessmen how to go about federal agencies STUPIDITY :))
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of hilarious when you think of it from this perspective!
Naj:
ReplyDeleteFrom that I was hearing Bush was going to put a permanent base on the Iranian border which can only cause trouble.
Breaking News! Breaking News!
ReplyDeleteNine U.S soldiers were killed today in Baghdad, while Petraeus was in the U.S lying about how great the war is.
Larry,
ReplyDeletespeaking of bases:
Have you seen this??
ReplyDelete
and this!
ReplyDeleteA former New Orleans prostitute who says she had an affair with Sen. David Vitter has passed a lie-detector test and will provide details of the four-month relationship at a press conference Tuesday, according to Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt.
ReplyDeleteWendy Cortez, whose real name is Wendy Ellis, says she had a sexual relationship with Vitter, R-La., in 1999, when he was a state legislator.
Copies of the results of Cortez's polygraph test, which she took at Flynt's request, will be provided to reporters at the news conference at Flynt's office in Beverly Hills, Calif., Hustler said in a news release Monday.
Vitter spokesman Joel Digrado wouldn't comment on the Flynt news conference. In an e-mail, Digrado said, "Sen. Vitter and his wife have addressed all of this very directly. The senator is focused on important Louisiana priorities like the water resources bill and the Iraq debate."
More news about the Republican Moralists.
A suicide bomber attacked a police convoy in southern Afghanistan Monday, killing 27 people and wounding dozens more, an official said.
ReplyDeleteThe early evening attack in the small town of Gereshk was one of the deadliest seen in Afghanistan, which has suffered a rash of suicide blasts as part of an intensifying Taliban insurgency.
"Twenty-seven bodies have been taken to the hospital and among them 13 are police," Gereshk district governor Abdul Manaf told AFP.
"Fifty-seven wounded people including some police are also in the hospital."
The defence and interior ministries in the capital Kabul gave different casualty tolls but both said more than 20 people were killed and scores wounded.
"There is blood everywhere, on the bridge and on the road," a witness named Feda Mohammad told AFP.
Manaf said the attacker had been driving an explosives-laden vehicle which he slammed into a four-vehicle police convoy on a small bridge near the town's crowded bazaar.
He said 13 police were among the dead, but this was not confirmed by the interior ministry which handles police matters.
Bush is mismanaging another war.
Why America Fights!
ReplyDeleteThis film needs to be made mandatory in every public and private school across America. And THEN the world will experience PEACE!
Good videos Naj and you are right everyone needs to see this, the real reason for war.
ReplyDeleteRove's little clone:
ReplyDeleteRove's longtime deputy Barry Jackson is taking over management of the four offices Rove supervised (political affairs, intergovernmental relations, public liaison and strategic initiatives), while new White House counselor Ed Gillespie will assume Rove's more amorphous role of providing Bush broader strategic advice -- with an assist from Jackson and communications chief Kevin Sullivan.
Jackson is one of those Washington worker bees who is virtually unknown outside the White House fence but is well-regarded inside. Early in the Bush presidency, he coordinated the so-called Strategery Group, the senior officials who met regularly for long-term planning under Rove's auspices.
Until he joined the White House in 2001, the District native was perhaps best known as a key operative, promoter and chief of staff for Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), now House minority leader. Jackson impressed Rove with his assistance in the 2000 campaign, including helping to manage the GOP convention in Philadelphia and organizing a group of Republican governors to campaign on Bush's behalf.
Jackson is seen as cool, analytical and fiercely partisan -- "none of this 'let's get along' kind of stuff," in the words of one GOP acquaintance from Capitol Hill, who described Jackson "as the man behind The Man."
Yesterday’s long anticipated “Petraeus Report” with an assist from Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, was actually a smokescreen for the Bush Administration.
ReplyDeleteWhile Republicans and neo-cons alike no doubt smiled with glee over the General’s claims of progress in the occupation, Democrats sat and probably took the bait.
A recent survey by three world-wide news and poll organizations has now shown that nearly 70% of Iraqis want the United States out of their country. To my dismay, the same survey also showed that 34% of the Iraq population said that attacks on coalition troops were justified.
Petraeus’ remarks about possible drawdowns in troops “around” summer of 2008 is the smokescreen of the century. This drawdown would bring the number of troops back to pre-surge numbers. If you recall, the surge was supposed to help end the war. Instead, it has done it’s job to buy Bush more time and more billions.
When you put your mind to it, what business did we have invading a country that had done nothing to deserve the bombing, the destruction, the suicide bombings, the death squads, the refugees in the millions and our soldiers and their families being tormented with the memories of a “war” brought on by lies from the President of The United States and his lemming followers.
A promise to rebuild the infrastructure has been broken. There is very little clean water that is drinkable, like we promised. There is, maybe, an hour or two of electricity a day. We promised to fix that.
Petraeus is just a puppet on a string for “W” and his mafia style of politics. Contractors are paid enormous sums of money to do things that are never going to be done. The money grubbing war profiteers should be in jail. And so should Petraeus, for lying to get his fourth star as a career apple polisher and ass-kisser for the current administration of thugs.
Democrats will likely roll over and play the submissive puppy when Bush asks for billions more in the “blind walk at midnight through the coal bin” that has no end, and will likely never end.
Take a look at the GAO report on the violence, then look at Petraeus’ report (which was written by the occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) and see just how the numbers don’t match up.
Will we ever see the end of this ridiculous, endless money pit? Probably not. As long as there’s money involved to fatten up Washington career politicians and their corporate donors.
Gotta expect this from an entire body of liars.
With the world being bombarded by all factions on their side on the war in Iraq, U.S. soldiers Internet blogs provided the kind of public relations Madison Avenue would drool over.
ReplyDeleteSoldiers told of helping Iraqi families, the loss of friends and their dangerous daily missions.
In the past year, as soldiers and Marines return for the second, third or even fourth deployments, and the death toll approaches 4,000, some soldiers began questioning the war.
At the very least they risk administrative punishments, called Article 15s, though if it has happened it has been kept quiet.
“The toothpaste is out of the tube. And, try as they might, the military’s information nannies are not going to be able to stuff it back in,” said Noah Schatman of Wired Magazine in an e-mail from Taji, Iraq. He said soldiers will pay $55 a month for a private connection.
The military is so petrified it will lose information control screensavers were installed on military computers warning blogs could jeopardize security, said Schatman, who runs Wired’s Danger Room blog and has tracked the unofficial use of the Internet by soldiers.
The US economy continues its slow death before our eyes, but economists, policymakers, and most of the public are blind to the tottering fabled land of opportunity.
ReplyDeleteIn August jobs in goods-producing industries declined by 64,000. The US economy lost 4,000 jobs overall. The private sector created a mere 24,000 jobs, all of which could be attributed to the 24,100 new jobs for waitresses and bartenders, and the government sector lost 28,000 jobs.
In the 21st century the US economy has ceased to create jobs in export industries and in industries that compete with imports. US job growth has been confined to domestic services, principally to food services and drinking places (waitresses and bartenders), private education and health services (ambulatory health care and hospital orderlies), and construction (which now has tanked). The lack of job growth in higher productivity, higher paid occupations associated with the American middle and upper middle classes will eventually kill the US consumer market.
The unemployment rate held steady, but that is because 340,000 Americans unable to find jobs dropped out of the labor force in August. The US measures unemployment only among the active work force, which includes those seeking jobs. Those who are discouraged and have given up are not counted as unemployed.
65 to 70 percent of Iraqis say the escalation has “worsened rather than improved security.”
ReplyDelete78 percent say “things are going badly for the country overall,” up 13 points since winter.
Overall conditions:
39 percent say “their lives are going well,” down from 71 percent in Nov. 2005.
23 percent say things will be better in a year, one-third of the Nov. 2005 level.
23 percent report “effective reconstruction efforts in their local area,” down 10 points since March.
On the U.S. presence:
79 percent oppose the presence of coalition forces, unchanged since winter.
63 percent say it was wrong for the U.S. to have invaded Iraq, up from 52 percent in March and 39 percent in Feb. 2004.
47 percent now favor “immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces,” a 12-point rise since March.
Last week, Bush proclaimed that “normal life is returning” in Anbar, but 74 percent of Anbar residents believe their children’s lives will be worse than theirs. In June, Petraeus said life in Baghdad was showing “astonishing signs of normalcy,” but zero percent of Baghdad residents report feeling “very safe” at home. Overwhelming majorities of those surveyed give negative ratings to electricity, jobs, and access to health care.
Didn't Bush claim the Iraqi's loved the U.S?
Check out Chuck's new blog on 9/11, it will make you think:
ReplyDelete9 11 lies
Larry said "Last week, Bush proclaimed that “normal life is returning” in Anbar, but 74 percent of Anbar residents believe their children’s lives will be worse than theirs. In June, Petraeus said life in Baghdad was showing “astonishing signs of normalcy,” but zero percent of Baghdad residents report feeling “very safe” at home. Overwhelming majorities of those surveyed give negative ratings to electricity, jobs, and access to health care.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Bush claim the Iraqi's loved the U.S?"
Well if you are DUMB enough to consider whats gone on the last 5 years as NORMAL, then you MUST be a braindead repug, because ONLY a delusional Neo Con could set the bar that low..........you KNOW things are pathetic if the Iraqi's long for the good ole days of Saddam rather than the chaos GWB has given then..........over a million dead, and 5%-10% of the country has fled, that would be like 30 million Americans fleeing OUR country because things are so bad..........how many days until Bush isout of office?????????
Mike:
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Bush will ever leave office, since the Democrats would do nothing to stop him if he said I"m staying.
Former US president Jimmy Carter joined the ranks of movie stars like Brad Pitt and George Clooney at the world premiere of "Man from Plains," the biopic about his life, which premiered Monday at the Toronto film festival.
ReplyDeleteThe documentary by Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs" and "Philadelphia") follows Carter on a promotional tour eight months ago for his controversial book "Palestine Peace, not Apartheid."
It also touches on his life since his one-term presidency (1977-1981).
While thousands of Clooney and Pitt fans crushed barricades around their hotel, a smaller, but duly awestruck group gathered outside a local cinema hoping for the 39th US president and Nobel peace prize winner's autograph.
Taking part in the film festival's first geo-political talk, taped for television, Carter called for Washington to hold "direct talks" with Iran, laid out his vision for Mideast peace and lamented the "unwarranted and unprecedented" religious fundamentalism that has crept into US politics.
In a stinging attack on US President George W. Bush and his Christian supporters, he said: "I worship Christ who was the prince of peace, not pre-emptive war."
"A superpower like the United States should use all of its resources ... to promote peace," he said.
Talking about his book, Carter said: "I hope it will precipitate attempting to find peace in the Holy Land."
"It's one of the most important political issues in the world, because a lot of the animosity (in the world) is centered around what's happening to bring peace or not bring peace in (Israel-Palestine)."
"There hasn't been one single day of peace talks in the last seven years," he complained.
"I became very frustrated to see the stagnation there and the animosity building up around the world against my own nation just because we had not tried to bring peace to Israel and its (surrounding) states," he said, explaining his inspiration for the book.
Does Bush understand this?
(Reuters) - The gap between rises in health insurance premiums and wages is at its widest point in six years, a survey said on Tuesday, which experts said puts workers in a perilous position should the economy turn sour.
ReplyDeletePremiums for employer-based health insurance have risen 6.1 percent in 2007, down from a 7.7 percent increase a year earlier, according to an annual survey of about 2,000 employers by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group.
But despite the slowdown in premium increases, the cost for family coverage has risen 78 percent since 2001, while wages rose 19 percent and prices for goods and services have risen 17 percent in that period, according to the report.
More fallout of the Bush economy!
(Reuters) - Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards received 38 percent of the vote to win an informal poll of Texas Democrats conducted online, the state's Democratic party said on Monday.
ReplyDeleteHis closest opponents were senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with 21 and 20 percent, respectively.
More than 8,000 people voted in the informal "ePrimary" held August 31 to September 7.
The latest snapshot of American employment showed the first monthly decline in four years, but the worst part is this: The numbers suggest a steady weakening of the job market, not just an August dive.
ReplyDeleteFactories, home builders, and public schools all saw big employment losses in August, yielding a net loss of 4,000 jobs for the nation. But what's more troubling than the negative tally, economists say, is the breadth of deceleration.
Job creation in the service sector, where most US jobs are, has been cooling – from food services to professional occupations. Healthcare is one notable exception.
"I don't think it's a one-month number," says John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, N.C. "Businesses are expecting some slowdown in the economy, and they're reacting to it by not hiring people."
Meanwhile, consumer spending has been growing more slowly, too.
These patterns raise the risk of a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. If economic uncertainty is prompting businesses to postpone hiring, and consumers to postpone purchases, a recession becomes much more probable.
Economists generally foresee tepid growth not an outright contraction of economic activity. But what happens to the job market in the next couple of months could determine the answer to that question.
The heightened threat of recession could prompt the Federal Reserve's policy committee to take stronger action to buoy the economy when it meets next week.
More fallout of the Bush economy!
I've always liked him. Well said.
ReplyDeleteLarry said...
ReplyDelete(Reuters) - Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards received 38 percent of the vote to win an informal poll of Texas Democrats conducted online, the state's Democratic party said on Monday.
His closest opponents were senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with 21 and 20 percent, respectively.
More than 8,000 people voted in the informal "ePrimary" held August 31 to September 7."
I sure hope Edwards wins the nomination and makes the MSM look even MORE stupid than always..........I want Hillary to get stomped.
I'm no fan of Hillary either, and I wish the media would stop proclaiming her greatness.
ReplyDeleteJust received an email from our Washington reporter, Erin Kelly, who just got off the phone with Rep. Jim Walsh. She's writing a story for tomorrow's paper that reports the moderate Republican is switching gears and is now calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
ReplyDeleteNot only that but Walsh, who visited Iraq during the weekend, says he will no longer support funding the war
Finally someone with backbone: Too bad he is a Repug.
The dollar fell to a fresh 15-year low against a basket of currencies on Tuesday as the currency continued to suffer from the prospect of a cut in US interest rates.
ReplyDeleteExpectations that the Federal Reserve would move to lower interest rates at its meeting on September 18 have increased since last week's US employment report, which showed the recent turmoil in the credit markets had spilled over into the wider economy.
More fallout of the Bush economy!
A top adviser to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney appears to be behind today's launch of a new Web site attacking GOP presidential rival Fred Thompson.
ReplyDeleteThe site, www.phoneyfred.org, paints an unflattering picture of Thompson, dubbing him: Fancy Fred, Five O'clock Fred, Flip-Flop Fred, McCain Fred, Moron Fred, Playboy Fred, Pro-Choice Fred, Son-of-a-Fred and Trial Lawyer Fred.
Shortly after a Washington Post reporter made inquiries about the site to the Romney campaign, the site was taken down.
Let us on this day mourn for those who tragically lost their lives on 9/11. And let us commit that their lives not be lost in vain, but become the basis for a new America of peace and justice. America must regain the moral high ground in our efforts to recover from 9/11.
ReplyDeleteLet us not forget the world was with America in our sorrow on September 11, 2001. The world was prepared to unite with America in a cooperative effort to challenge terrorists who attempt to disrupt civil society. Instead, the Administration used 9/11 as an excuse to attack a nation that did not attack us. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, or with Al Qaeda’s role in 9/11. Iraq did not have the intention or the capability of attacking the United States. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. Yet the Administration deliberately and falsely conflated 9/11 with Iraq, with the cooperation of an unquestioning media.
As a result, nearly 4,000 of our brave soldiers have lost their lives, and tens of thousands have been permanently injured in combat in Iraq. The subsequent occupation has fueled the insurgency and will continue to result in more troop losses until the United States leaves. Also, nearly one million innocent Iraqis have lost their lives as a result of this war. This violence against an innocent people is a tragedy of immense proportions. It is also a violation of international law, and those who authored this war must be held accountable for their actions.
Americans will spend close to $2 trillion in Iraq by the time the costs of this war are totaled, but the longer term costs have included the undermining America’s moral authority in the world, the separation of America from the nations and the peoples of the world, and the destruction of a domestic agenda which is being deferred while we borrow money from China to fight the war in Baghdad.
We need to call those who used 9/11 to take us into war against Iraq to an accounting under the U.S. Constitution, U.S. law, and international law. We must soon begin a period of truth and reconciliation in our own nation. We must have forums of open dialogue throughout the country where we can come together to remember who we were before 9/11, to share our personal narratives of the times when we felt most secure, most in love with our nation, most trustful of our democratic institutions. We must recover our capacity for civic action. We must reclaim our nation. The only way we can do that is to tell the truth.
- Dennis Kucinich
These hearings suggest just one thing to me.
ReplyDeleteThe Bush administration is keeping 165,000 U.S. troops in Iraq as a prelude to war in Iran.
The neocons, PNAC, and Israel, has had control of American foreign policy for years. Iran, long the enemy of Israel and a source of enormous petroleum, has been in Cheney's sights for years and he's not going to rest until U.S. troops are rolling into Tehran.
The worst thing about it to me is, The Democratic Congress won't oppose this next phase of the Bush administration's goals in the middle east.
It's like we are pins and needles at what will happen next. We probably know...but until it does happen...we are really left biting our nails waiting for the ball to drop. This really is an insecure thing that our Decider in Thief has left us to. There should be a law against a resident of the White House to do this to Americans or to other nations. Just willy nilly behavior!
ReplyDeleteSumo:
ReplyDeleteThe bad thing is we still have this much time left to endure it:
The Official George W. Bush
"Days Left In Office"
Countdown:
496 DAYS
9 Hrs 40 Min 11.8 Sec
Christopher:
ReplyDeleteDid you notice the silence of Reid and Pelosi after Petraeus lied to the world in the hearings?
From someone who knows:
ReplyDeleteAyub Nuri, an Iraqi journalist residing in the United States, told CNN on Monday that even when he was last in Baghdad in 2006, "the situation was very, very dangerous," but that things are much worse now.
"When I speak to my friends and family these days on the phone, they tell me that it is 100 times worse than when I was there," Nuri stated. "Even the regular people cannot leave their own neighborhoods. ... If you go to another neighborhood, that's completely unknown to you, and you might not be able to come home alive."
When asked about General Petraeus' suggestion last week that "Iraqi soldiers and police are very much in the fight," Nuri replied, "I think that's not true at all. ... I have to be honest with you and with everyone else in the world. When I was traveling around Iraq, in Baghdad or anywhere else, I was afraid of the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police more than I was afraid of a militia or unknown men."
Nuri explained that after the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded Saddam's army, "They were desperate to recreate another Iraqi army, and in case of desperation, of course, you accept anyone to join your army, and many of them were criminals, many of them were drug dealers, and many of them had ... affiliation only to their own areas." He said that as a result, many Iraqis these days would prefer to have their neighborhood patrolled by a US unit rather than an Iraqi unit.
"I personally do not have any faith or any hope in the Maliki government," Nuri stated, though he emphasized that the problem wasn't just with Maliki. "The Iraqi government is neither willing nor they are able to do anything," he concluded.
Will the Democratic Congress, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, oppose Bush's anticipated request for an additional $50 billion dollars for the Iraq war?
ReplyDeleteWill the Democratic Congress, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, oppose the Cheney-driven plan to invade Iran?
If you answered "Yes," then I have a bridge to sell you.
Christopher check this out:
ReplyDeleteAs soon as Rep. Ike Skelton gaveled a joint Congressional hearing to order this morning, protesters could be heard yelling "war criminal" at Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who were about to testify about conditions in Iraq.
At least one woman could be heard shouting briefly, before Skelton (D-MO) ordered anyone who disrupted the proceedings to be removed from the hearing room.
"Out they go," Skelton said. He paused a few seconds, then asked no one in particular, "Are they gone?"
At least a half-dozen protesters were arrested during the course of Monday's hearing, and their presence visibly iritated Skelton.
“That really pisses me off down there, Those assholes,” a sharp-eared Wall Street Journal reporter overheard Skelton say to the committee’s ranking Republican member Duncan Hunter of California. A staffer came to the rescue later, shutting off Skelton's microphone.
Members of the anti-war group Code Pink have been a near constant presence at hearings on the Iraq war, and several members have been removed from hearings and arrested for other Capitol Hill protests.
Protestors can't even exercise their rights to voice their opinions without a Democrat having them removed.
ReplyDeleteGovernment officials have admitted that American companies are paying millions of dollars in bribes to military officers to win billions in contracts for work in Iraq, according to numerous press reports last week.
ReplyDeleteThis is only the tip of an iceberg that represents an unprecedented fleecing of the American taxpayer.
“Half the budget of the Department of Defense is going to no-bid contractors,” Ralph Wipfly, a Brookings Institution scholar who writes about military contracting, told the World. “It’s like the military contractors are on steroids — this is unprecedented in the history of our country. They are taking the taxpayers for many billions of dollars.”
He cited some almost incredible figures: “Halliburton, the vice president’s company, got $22.1 billion, security contractors this year got $4 billion, and by 2003 the Defense Department had already awarded $300 billion to these contractors. This does not include contracts awarded by the State Department.”
Wipfli added, “Under President Bush this disturbing process has really been stepped up. The money awarded to Halliburton alone is three times as much as the entire cost of the first Gulf War.”
In many cases bribery has apparently replaced bidding as the method for winning contracts. The New York Times reported Aug. 31 that an American company operating from Kuwait paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to U.S. military officers to win $11 million in contracts.
The Army says it recently suspended Lee Dynamics, run by a retired officer, from doing business with the government. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent the Pentagon inspector general to investigate.
Another report says that Earnest O. Robbins, an Air Force engineer who had supervised 70,000 military personnel and contractors with an annual budget of $8 billion, quit the military in 2004 and became a contractor himself. The government awarded him $72 million to build a police station in Baghdad.
Earlier this year he delivered not a police station but a “pile of rubble so badly constructed that the walls literally dripped with human excrement because of subpar plumbing,” Matt Taibi wrote Aug. 23 in Rolling Stone magazine.
Auditors working for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction wrote in their official report available from the government: “We witnessed a light fixture so full of diluted urine and feces that it would not operate. During our visit the material dripped from the ceiling onto our assessment team member’s shirt.”
Just another normal day in Bush's world.
One way the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to encourage free and efficient trade was by allowing long-haul trucks from Canada, Mexico and the United States to deliver goods throughout the three countries. Unfortunately, more than a decade later the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and their allies in Congress are still working to keep Mexican trucks out.
ReplyDeleteThe Teamsters and their environmental allies claim that the trucks aren’t safe and are dirty. A new pilot program, however, would require that any Mexican trucks approved for entry into the United States be inspected for safety every three months. Environmental regulations that apply to American trucks would also apply to Mexican trucks.
That’s not enough to satisfy the Teamsters, which, we suspect, are just trying to stave off the competition. And it’s not been enough for the Sierra Club, which doesn’t trust the Bush administration — or the Clinton administration before that — to enforce environmental standards.
That stubbornness is counterproductive. Keeping Mexican trucks out only keeps transport costs higher, harming American businesses and consumers. It sends Mexico the message that the United States doesn’t stand by its commitments, and it reinforces suspicions that when it comes to free trade, the United States only likes it one way.
Last week, the Department of Transportation gave the first Mexican trucking company permission to operate under a one-year pilot program that would allow roughly 500 trucks from 100 Mexican carriers onto American highways. Congress seems determined to block that progress. Today, the Senate is scheduled to vote on an amendment, filed by Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, that would deny financing for the pilot program next year. The House has already approved the cutoff.
Stop Bush's insanity before more jobs are lost.
Free Speech and the First Amendment are quaint relics of a pre-9/11, pre-Bush Murika.
ReplyDeleteJohn Warner questioned lapdog Petraeus today with the following results:
ReplyDeleteWARNER: I hope in the recesses of your heart that you know that strategy will continue the casualties, stress on our forces, stress on military families, stress on all Americans. Are you able to say at this time, if we continue what you have laid before the Congress, this strategy, that if you continue, you are making America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objections in Iraq.
WARNER: Does that make America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind. What I have focused on and been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multinational Force in Iraq.
If the infamous "surge" general doesn't know if Bush's war has made us safer, then why are we still there?
Does Petraeus think this is a safe Iraq:
ReplyDeleteInsurgents fired rockets or mortars Tuesday at the sprawling garrison that houses the headquarters of American forces in Iraq, killing one person and wounding 11 coalition soldiers, the U.S. command said.
The command said the person killed was a "third country national," meaning someone who is not an American or Iraqi. Most troops stationed at Camp Victory are American but other coalition soldiers are based at the complex near Baghdad International Airport.
Two Mobsters still together:
ReplyDeleteAs presidential candidate and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, took the stage Tuesday to commemorate the sixth anniversary of 9/11, a former friend of his and influential figure from that day avoided the spotlight. Deliberately.
Bernard Kerik, who was the police commissioner of New York when the Twin Towers collapsed, attended the somber memorial near Ground Zero. But he didn't address the crowd. And he definitely didn't rekindle his once-close relationship with Giuliani.
As General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker were being questioned this afternoon, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were conferring with Mr. Bush at the White House.
ReplyDelete“It sounds to me as if General Petraeus is presenting a plan for at least a 10-year high-level U.S. presence in Iraq,” Ms. Pelosi said, described the White House session as “interesting.”
But Mr. Reid’s words and body language hinted that the meeting had included anger as well. “This war is the president’s war, and the Republicans have bought this war hook, line and sinker,” Mr. Reid said, expressing confidence in solid Democratic opposition to the war, as well as growing Republican dissent.
How sweet, hudling with Bush to further his war, while all others were at a hearing to end it.
Hey guys the hearings today were awful and boring but they also have shown how much the general was like Bush and wants more war
ReplyDeleteHey Larry- and you saw that a Minister was arrested today at the Hearings - he was waiting in line- and he had a Button on that the Police did not like- so he was pulled our of line and arrested- and tackled and thrown to the ground ( by atleast 6 Police)....it is on YouTube....It is on at Crooks and Liars....please check it out....and I sent the whole thing to Keith Olbermann- hoping that Countdown might cover- but no...and NO MSM covered....The Minister was hurt- and his leg broken...
ReplyDeleteI still reccomend that anyone going to DC this week TAKE A CAMERA, CELLPHONE....keep documenting...and sending and spreading...the Truth...
okay..sorry just wanted to get this messege to you all over here...thank you for all that you do...
oh that was poorly worded....I meant to ask Did you see that a Minister was arrested today in DC at the Petreus Hearings?
ReplyDeleteEnigma:
ReplyDeleteI saw on the news a guy being carted out of the Petreaus hearings, but I didn't know he was a minister.
I think the "religious right" are mainly limited to the followers of Hagee, Robertson and Dobson.
The others have mainly left because their flock has seen the lies and desire for war is destroying the country.
House Democratic leaders have decided to postpone a vote on a criminal contempt resolution against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers for several weeks, and possibly longer, according to top lawmakers and aides.
ReplyDeleteThe decision delays any constitutional showdown, at least for the moment, between Congress and President Bush over the extent of executive privilege and the president's ability to fend off congressional investigations.
Rarely do fights between the Speaker and Chairman break into public, but this one is.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said he is uncomfortable with the delay and worries the House will be seen as toothless unless it moves quickly to hold top officials in contempt for failing to provide documents and testimony in congressional probes...
Conyers said it was critical for Congress to enforce its subpoenas against executive branch officials, including senior White House aides.
"Otherwise, we just become a [social] club," Conyers said, adding that he would be reviewing the issue with Pelosi soon.
Looks like Pelosi is stalling to protect Bush!
Thompson is a heathen:
ReplyDeleteThompson said he usually attends church when visiting his mother in Tennessee and isn't a member of any church in the Washington area.
Thompson's remarks may not play well with religious voters who represent a sizable segment of the Republican Party and whose support he has been courting, portraying himself as a ``common sense conservative.'' President George W. Bush received 78 percent of the evangelical Christian vote.
Thompson is supposedly the "religious rights" anointed candidate, but it appears he is a backslider of sorts.
(AP) - A former New Orleans prostitute who will be featured in Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine appeared at his office Tuesday to accuse Sen. David Vitter of having a sexual relationship with her in 1999. Wendy Ellis told reporters that Vitter visited her two to three times a week for sexual relations between July and November 1999.
ReplyDeleteFlynt produced parts of an Aug. 22 polygraph test that he said confirmed her account, but Ellis could provide no financial records, photographs or other evidence to support her assertion that the Louisiana Republican was a client during that time.
Vitter has denied those claims.
"I want the truth to be known," Ellis said. "It was a pure sexual relationship. He would come in and do his business."
Ellis declined to comment when asked if she was being paid or reimbursed for her statement regarding Vitter, but she later said she would appear in Hustler magazine in January.
Vitter must be a Viagra King among the prostitutes of DC.
Proof of a conservative press:
ReplyDeleteThough papers may be "willing to consider" progressive syndicated columnists, this unprecedented study reveals the true extent of the dominance of conservatives:
Sixty percent of the nation's daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists. Only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives, while the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced.
In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.2
The top 10 columnists as ranked by the number of papers in which they are carried include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.
The top 10 columnists as ranked by the total circulation of the papers in which they are published also include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.
In 38 states, the conservative voice is greater than the progressive voice -- in other words, conservative columns reach more readers in total than progressive columns. In only 12 states is the progressive voice greater than the conservative voice.
In three out of the four broad regions of the country -- the West, the South, and the Midwest -- conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists. Only in the Northeast do progressives reach more readers, and only by a margin of 2 percent.
In eight of the nine divisions into which the U.S. Census Bureau divides the country, conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists in any given week. Only in the Middle Atlantic division do progressive columnists reach more readers each week.
Though they have suffered slow but steady declines in readership over the last couple of decades, newspapers remain in many ways the most important of all news media. The Newspaper Association of America estimates that each copy of a weekday paper is read by an average of 2.1 adults, while each Sunday paper is read by an average of 2.5 adults,3 pushing total newspaper readership for daily papers to more than 116 million and Sunday papers to more than 134 million. This means that some columnists reach tens of millions of readers, and one, conservative George Will, actually reaches more than 50 million.
Furthermore, newspapers are the preferred news medium of those most interested in the news. According to a 2006 Pew Research Center study, 66 percent of those who say they follow political news closely regularly read newspapers, far more than the number who cite any other medium.4 And an almost identical proportion of those who say they "enjoy keeping up with the news" -- more than half the population -- turn to newspapers more than any other medium. These more aware citizens are in turn more likely to influence the opinions of their families, friends, and associates.
Syndicated newspaper columnists have a unique ability to influence public opinion and the national debate. And whether examining only the top columnists or the entire group, large papers or small, the data presented in this report make clear that conservative syndicated columnists enjoy a clear advantage over their progressive counterparts.
Lydia. You guys are having Elizibeth Edwards on?
ReplyDeleteWow. You guys really are getting some hot guests.
You're interviewing some of the most talked about political figures in the news today. Edwards, Kucinich, Gravel.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed.
TOMORROW AT 8 AM PST, we interview Elizabeth Edwards on Basham and Cornell Radio
ReplyDeletePlease tune in or listen in archives.
She is amazing.
Check out blog page for links.
Thanks! xoxo
I wouldnt miss that show, Edwards has really won me over in the debates........I'm REALLY hoping he gets the nomination...........HE"S the guy the repugs are afraid of, they WANT Hillary to win, they DONT want Edwards.
ReplyDeleteI agree Bartlebe!
ReplyDeleteLarry your absolutely right about the Conservative dominated media........its such a joke when these Conservative fascist liars say "The Liberal Media" whenever something damaging to their evil corrupt agenda comes out..........the truth is like holy water to a vampire to these liars.
ReplyDeleteGood article to understand to debunk to coming rush to invade Iran;
ReplyDeleteThe Iranian petroleum crisis and United States national security
The U.S. case against Iran is based on Iran's deceptions regarding nuclear weapons development. This case is buttressed by assertions that a state so petroleum-rich cannot need nuclear power to preserve exports, as Iran claims. The U.S. infers, therefore, that Iran's entire nuclear technology program must pertain to weapons development.
However, some industry analysts project an Irani oil export decline [e.g., Clark JR (2005) Oil Gas J 103(18):34–39]. If such a decline is occurring, Iran's claim to need nuclear power could be genuine. Because Iran's government relies on monopoly proceeds from oil exports for most revenue, it could become politically vulnerable if exports decline.
Here, we survey the political economy of Irani petroleum for evidence of this decline. We define Iran's export decline rate (edr) as its summed rates of depletion and domestic demand growth, which we find equals 10–12%. We estimate marginal cost per barrel for additions to Irani production capacity, from which we derive the "standstill" investment required to offset edr. We then compare the standstill investment to actual investment, which has been inadequate to offset edr.
Even if a relatively optimistic schedule of future capacity addition is met, the ratio of 2011 to 2006 exports will be only 0.40–0.52.[ie slightly less than half of current levels] A more probable scenario is that, absent some change in Irani policy, this ratio will be 0.33–0.46[even worse, possibly one thrd current levels] with exports declining to zero by 2014–2015.
Energy subsidies, hostility to foreign investment, and inefficiencies of its state-planned economy underlie Iran's problem, which has no relation to "peak oil."
Whole article HERE
{warning somewhat technical}
Nor will the MSM discuss this this from the same article;
Some war advocates believe that U.S. military action would not generate support for the regime. They cite the example of Irani dissent against the Iran–Iraq War to assert that an attack would not unite Iran against the U.S.:
Something so secular and adventitious as an American airstrike on a nuclear facility is very unlikely to bring back that magic, that love of God and man, that can send young boys across minefields on motorcycles (42).
This assertion ignores Iran's fierce resistance to Iraq's invasion of 1980. When Saddam Hussein attempted to seize Iran's oil province of Khuzestan, even Khuzestani Arabs rallied to Irani nationalism. Indeed, the invasion united all Iran behind a theocracy whose grasp on power had been far from secure. Dissent arose only many years later. After Iraqi forces were driven from Iran, Khomeini determined not to quit fighting until Saddam Hussein was deposed. Irani forces thus pursued Saddam's army deep into Iraq in an invasion that faltered only at the gates of Basra. This was when protest began, after most of the 750,000 Iranis who would perish in the war were already dead.
Protests decried any further slaughter in what had become an expeditionary war. Of the need to resist invasion in 1980 there had been no dissent, only volunteers for battle (43). A U.S. war or air campaign would seem the equivalent of Saddam Hussein's invasion. Furthermore, U.S. military action would allow the theocracy to escape culpability for the economic disaster looming before Iran. Perceived responsibility for economic problems would be transferred to the U.S., as happened in Iraq.
Which the war chicken hawks in the US would do well to read and undersand especially since they refused to read and understand the implications of attacking Iraq....
But you will never hear about this or read this in the MSM....
Elizabeth Edwards is a beautiful soul. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking often of her.
ReplyDeleteShe and John have led a relatively privileged life in some ways, but they have been so tested. I really wish for her pain to end and for her to live another hundred years. The things that she's doing now in spite of her pain should convince anyone of the sincerity of John Edwards.
Well, anyone but that Chimpleton shill Katie Couric. I saw her try very hard to insinuate that John was using his wife's illness for political gain. After what Katie, herself, has been through, her actions are beneath contemptible.
Elizabeth Edwards bring so much to the table, so much more than either Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi, that I'm surprised she never ran for office herself?
ReplyDeleteHousing costs ate up more of the monthly paycheck for millions of Americans in 2006 than the year before, despite signs of a slowdown in the housing market, according to figures made public today by the Census Bureau. The bureau also reported that more Americans over age 65 were continuing to work last year, whether by choice or out of economic necessity.
ReplyDeleteHousing Burden The housing data describe the buildup of economic pressures before the recent wave of foreclosures, as lenders allowed home-buyers to borrow more money relative to their earnings and consumers borrowed or refinanced as if the market would never fall. At the same time, incomes did not keep up with housing prices.
Nationally, half of renters and more than one third of mortgage holders — 37 percent, up from 35 percent in 2005, or a rise of more than 1.5 million households — spent at least 30 percent of their gross income on housing costs, the level many government agencies consider the limit of affordability.
“Maybe it all means that housing is not as smart an investment for as many people as we thought,” said Matt Fellowes, a scholar in metropolitan policy at the Brookings Institution. “Stocks perform better than houses over time. Maybe the American dream should be building wealth in general, not building a certain type of wealth, which we see is narrow and dangerous.”
Bush has destroyed the American dream.
Reuters) - The fuel lines of the global financial markets are all but frozen, leaving the Federal Reserve no choice but to cut interest rates, despite concerns about bailing out speculators.
ReplyDeleteTo fear “moral hazard” - encouraging imprudent risk takers by stepping in when markets turn bad - is at this point out of all proportion to the risk that the U.S. tumbles into recession.
It’s been a month of scary statistics but none scarier than a survey of U.S. mortgage brokers that found a third of all home purchase loans originated in August were cancelled.
Those aren’t hedge funds or private equity firms taking their lumps, those are home buyers and consumers who can’t get credit in large part because financial markets have seized up.
And if you think the mortgage brokers are crying wolf, look at issuance of mortgage bonds backed by loans not eligible to be sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
Lehman Brothers figures show non-agency mortgage security issuance falling to $15 billion in August, down from $41 billion in July and $70 billion a year ago. And rates are much higher, up by 0.85 percentage points since June for prime loans larger than Fannie and Freddie’s $417,000 limit.
Consider too that many of these loans are tied to the London interbank rate, which has ballooned as banks scramble for cash, and the pain is even worse.
More fallout of the Bush economy!
Phil Griffin knew it would happen, he just didn’t think it would happen this quickly. On Friday night, MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann was the top-rated cable news show in the 25-54 demo. That means Olbermann beat his cable rival, FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor and its host Bill O’Reilly. That’s a first.
ReplyDeleteOlbermannA_9.10.jpg “The real insight I had was over the summer,” said Griffin, the NBC News senior VP who manages the Today show as well as MSNBC. Griffin tells TVNewser, Olbermann “maintained his core audience, so when the mass viewers came back after Labor Day…it’s just surprising it happened so quickly.”
O’Reilly and all the FNC primetime programs still dominate the total viewer numbers. So why is the demo win such a big deal? “It’s everything, the demo is everything. It’s where we make our money,” said Griffin.
This is going to be a busy autumn for MSNBC. In a few weeks, the cable net’s employees will move out of their New Jersey offices and move in with their broadcast counterparts in New York City. And the Olbermann bump helps. “For years MSNBC struggled to find someone to be the tent pole and lead the way,” Griffin says. “In 11+ years, I don’t think there has been a better moment.”
Griffin should know, he helped start MSNBC and watched as FNC shot past CNN to #1 where it remains today. And he says Bill O’Reilly rightly gets a lot of the credit. “O’Reilly did it for Fox in 1999, and helped take it to where it is today.” But, he adds, “It’s clear now, it’s a two-person race.
Olbermann has the best show on TV.
A sudden and unexpected drop in U.S. jobs has stoked fears that the fallout from the housing slump has only just begun, sending global stocks tumbling again.
ReplyDeletePaced by losses in construction and manufacturing, the world's largest economy shed jobs for the first time in four years last month, according to the U.S. Labour Department.
The August figures, combined with new lower estimates of jobs created in prior months, are ominous signs the turmoil may be shifting from Wall Street to Main Street.
The question now is whether the United States can avoid a full-blown recession.
Print Edition - Section Front
Enlarge Image
"A drop of this magnitude has never been observed outside recessions," National Bank Financial economist Stéfane Marion remarked. "That is unnerving."
The jobs report marks "the first solid evidence that the economic turmoil in financial markets has found its way into the job market," said economist Jared Bernstein of the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute.
Mr. Bernstein said we're now seeing a "contagion" effect from the bursting housing bubble, the credit crunch, and recent financial market strife.
"It was only a matter of time before the housing slump started showing up in the employment numbers," said John Challenger of recruiting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. "The unexpected loss of 4,000 jobs in August ... may only be the beginning as the home market collapse ripples through the economy."
More results of the Bush economy!
Check out this list of the most corrupt members in Congress. Notice only one Democrat on the list.
ReplyDeleteBeyond Delay
Think Progress:
ReplyDeleteOn Aug. 19, seven active duty soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division wrote an op-ed in The New York Times called “The War As We Saw It.” The piece expressed skepticism about “recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable”:
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. […]
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal. […]
We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.
On Monday, two of these soldiers — Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance Gray — died in a vehicle accident in Western Baghdad. The news of their deaths came just before Gen. David Petraeus began testifying to Congress about the Bush administration’s progress in Iraq.
Is anyone surprised to learn that Nancy “Impeachment is off the table” Pelosi sided with Republicans and expressed her disapproval of MoveOn.org’s ad that referred to Gen. David Petraeus as “General Betray Us?”
ReplyDeleteThe increasingly remote and inaccessible Speaker of the House said:
“I would have preferred that they won’t do such an ad.”
But Pelosi conceded it is not her prerogative to say how people express themselves.
MoveOn received heavy criticism for the ad, largely from Republicans who tried to make it a centerpiece of the hearings with Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the state of affairs in Iraq.
Christopher:
ReplyDeleteMaybe thats why Pelosi was huddled with Bush yesterday during the hearings.
She had to get her daily instructions from her new master.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is set to deliver a "major policy speech" on Iraq today in Clinton, Iowa. Below, an excerpt of the speech obtained by the Huffington Post:
ReplyDeleteWe hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. They conflate Iran and al Qaeda. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear - loud and clear - from the American people and the Congress: you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war.
Lets hope the rest of the Democrats get the message, including Pelosi and Reid.
Senate Democratic leaders on Wednesday rejected the call by the top U.S. general in Iraq for a reduction of up to 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by next summer, saying it does not go far enough.
ReplyDelete"This is unacceptable to me, it's unacceptable to the American people," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
What are you gonna do about it Harry, continue funding like you did before!
In his first public comments unrelated to his arrest in an airport sex sting, Sen. Larry Craig said the United States is making progress in Iraq because of a troop escalation overseen by Gen. David Petraeus.
ReplyDeleteIn a statement from Boise, where he has remained since his arrest became public Aug. 27, the Idaho Republican said he was encouraged by congressional testimony from Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
What's Craig looking for another "friend."
AP:
ReplyDeleteOngoing weakness in the housing market will push the national economy to the brink of recession, but growth in other areas should put the country back on a slow road to recovery by 2009, according to an economic forecast released Wednesday.
The quarterly Anderson Forecast by the University of California at Los Angeles predicts growth in the gross domestic product of just over 1 percent for the fourth quarter of 2007 and first quarter of 2008.
The coming disaster of the Bush economy!
The cost of health insurance in the United States climbed nearly twice as fast as wages in the first half of 2007, with family coverage costing employers around 1,000 dollars (714 euros) a month, a poll showed Wednesday.
ReplyDeletePremiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose an average of 6.1 percent in 2007, while wages went up by 3.7 percent, the Employer Health Benefits Survey released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust showed.
The 6.1 percent rise in health insurance premiums marked a slowdown from the rate of increase last year, but also strongly outpaced inflation, running at 2.6 percent.
"In 2007, the increase in health insurance premiums was about twice the rate of inflation and not quite twice the increase in workers' pay," Kaiser vice-president Gary Claxton said in a webcast.
Premiums for family coverage have surged by 78 percent since 2001, while wages have gone up 19 percent.
The average premium for family coverage in 2007 was just over 12,000 dollars, with workers having to pick up part of the cost.
Workers contributed, on average, 273 dollars a month towards family health coverage packages, up from 248 dollars last year, the survey, which polled just over 3,000 public and private employers with three or more workers during the first five months of 2007, showed.
"Every year health insurance becomes less affordable for families and businesses. Over the past six years, the amount families pay out of pocket for their share of premiums has increased by about 1,500 dollars," Drew Altman, chief executive of Kaiser, said in a statement.
Employers in the United States offer health insurance packages as a worker benefit.
In 2007, 60 percent of US firms offered health benefits.
That was down by nine percentage points on companies offering health care packages in 2000, the survey showed.
Another disaster of the Bush economy!
More Bush Corruption:
ReplyDeleteAn independent watchdog agency has asked the Department of Education to investigate why President Bush's younger brother, Neil, has received money earmarked for the president's signature education initiative to sell a curriculum program that has not been subjected to the rigorous evaluation it deserves.
Neil Bush, 52, who has no background in education, founded Ignite! Learning in 1999 with donations from his parents and a slate of international business interests. The company produces "Curriculum on Wheels" devices -- computer/projectors that are pre-loaded with software aimed at preparing students for standardized tests that are the central tenet of the president's No Child Left Behind law.
The "COWs" are sold to school districts at a cost of $3,800 to $4,200, although they have not been subjected to peer-reviewed scientific studies, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. CREW says nearly $1 million has been spent on the systems in 16 school districts, mostly in Texas, where George W. Bush served as governor before his election in 2000, and Florida, where brother Jeb Bush is governor.
The watchdog group is requesting an investigation from the Education Department's inspector general, alleging that the Ignite! systems do not meet the standards laid out by Congress dictating how NCLB funds can be spent.
"It is astonishing that taxpayer dollars are being spent on unproven educational products to the financial benefit of the president’s brother," Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, said in a news release. "The IG should investigate whether children’s educations are being sacrificed so that Neil Bush can rake in federal funds."
Neil Bush first attracted public scrutiny for his role in the Savings and Loan scandals of the late 1980s when a Colorado S&L on whose board he served failed. The scandal cost taxpayers $1.6 billion.
Some school districts identified by CREW spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal money on the mobile projectors, which include curriculum for math, science or social studies. In addition to their baseline cost -- $3,800 for a single-subject COW or $4,200 for one covering all three subjects -- the units impose on schools a $1,000 annual licensing and upkeep fee, CREW says. Schools also have the option of purchasing lifetime contracts for $6,800, according to the New York Times.
Do you want your tax dollars going to another Bush?
Larry said...
ReplyDeleteA sudden and unexpected drop in U.S. jobs has stoked fears that the fallout from the housing slump has only just begun, sending global stocks tumbling again.
Paced by losses in construction and manufacturing, the world's largest economy shed jobs for the first time in four years last month, according to the U.S. Labour Department.
The August figures, combined with new lower estimates of jobs created in prior months, are ominous signs the turmoil may be shifting from Wall Street to Main Street.
The question now is whether the United States can avoid a full-blown recession.
Print Edition - Section Front
Enlarge Image
"A drop of this magnitude has never been observed outside recessions," National Bank Financial economist Stéfane Marion remarked. "That is unnerving."
The jobs report marks "the first solid evidence that the economic turmoil in financial markets has found its way into the job market," said economist Jared Bernstein of the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute.
Mr. Bernstein said we're now seeing a "contagion" effect from the bursting housing bubble, the credit crunch, and recent financial market strife.
"It was only a matter of time before the housing slump started showing up in the employment numbers," said John Challenger of recruiting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. "The unexpected loss of 4,000 jobs in August ... may only be the beginning as the home market collapse ripples through the economy."
More results of the Bush economy!"
declining employment almost always foewshadows a recession.
BTW, did anyone notice the dollar is at a record low while oil is at a record high.
Mike:
ReplyDeleteNo matter what the say or if the drop interest rates, the economy will be in a deep recession by Christmas, as predicted by Warren Buffet.
Anyone remember how Crusty The Clown, Troll Tex and Fascist Fan used to thump their chests and proclaim how great the economy was, and laugh at us for saying it was a house of cards and a recession was coming, just like they laugghed at us when we said the Democrats would take back BOTH houses of Congress............wonder what ever happened to those repug dunces that were dead wrong about essentially EVERYTHING!
ReplyDeleteEveryday there are more signs of the economy going in the tank. Housing is leading the path downward.
ReplyDeleteAnyone catch the Betraueus hearings yesterday, even Lindsay Graham was grilling the liar and raking him over the coals for his lies and inconsistancies.
ReplyDeleteThe dollar is at an all time low, oil and forclosures are at all time highs and the trolls are silent.........in fact their silence is deafening!
ReplyDeleteLindsay Graham is worried his closet will be emptied, but they will all still fund the war.
ReplyDeleteThe Fed and all the pundits and talking heads are talking about rate cuts...........the Fed DOESNT cut rates when the economy is strong, they raise rates when the economy is strong and cut interest rates when the economy is weak and entering recession.........oh well maybe the ignorant trolls and GWB who have been dead WRONG about EVERYTHING know MORE than Warren Buffet and the Fed........and maybe pigs fly.....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteDid anyone catch the fact that Betraeus said at his comfirmation hearing BEFORE the surge that the sheiks in Anbar province were siding with us against Al Qaeda and things were improving then BEFORE the surge...........so clearly the improvements in Anbar happened before the surge and WERE NOT a result of the surge and Betraeus KNEW that.
ReplyDeleteBut the improvements in Anbar are irrelevant anyway because the objective of the surge was to foster a political solution to the violence NOT merely to make Anbar slightly safer...........A political solution is farther rather than nearer as a result of the surge, there have been more rather than less deaths this year compared to last year, almost every month, which means the Surge has been a pathetic failure.
ReplyDeleteAnderson Cooper Clearly stated this last Night.
Petraeus also said there is no way of seeing the future to tell what the "surge" will do, then he said if we pull out all the chaos that will ensue.
ReplyDeleteHow can he foretell one but not the other.
The "surge"is a prelude to extend the mess, because Bush knows the Democrats haven't the spine to stop him.
ReplyDeleteLydia
ReplyDeleteI hope someone writes about the interview today. I think Elizabeth is a fine Woman and will make a great first Lady. She has a lot of Class. I think Edwards would make a fine President. Short of Al Gore I think Edwards would be our best bet, if anyone can clean up the country and the world aftwer Bush.
an average patriot said...
ReplyDeleteLydia
I hope someone writes about the interview today. I think Elizabeth is a fine Woman and will make a great first Lady. She has a lot of Class. I think Edwards would make a fine President. Short of Al Gore I think Edwards would be our best bet, if anyone can clean up the country and the world aftwer Bush."
I couldnt agree more Patriot!
Pelosi should be impeached for not wanting to enforce the Subpoensa and throw Bolten, Rove and Miers in jail for contemp...........the is a total disgrace!
ReplyDeleteDennis Kicinich is on Ed Shultz for thr full 3 hours today.
ReplyDeletePelosi was blasting moveon.org for their Petraeus ad.
ReplyDeleteWhose side is she on?
Two more U.S soldiers were killed in Baghdad today.
ReplyDeleteAre you beaming with joy Bush?
Pentagon draws 'Three-day blitz' plan for Iran Adam Doster
ReplyDeletePublished: Saturday September 1, 2007
A national security expert revealed to The London Times that the Pentagon has "drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days."
Speaking at a meeting organized by the conservative foreign policy journal The National Interest, Alexis Debat -- director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center -- said the U.S. military had concluded: "Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same." It was, he added, a "very legitimate strategic calculus."
According to the paper, one Washington source said the "temperature was rising" to launch an Iranian attack inside the Bush administration. This information comes on the heels of reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency last week that cited "significant cooperation" with Iran over its nuclear program, including the slowing of uranium enrichment.
Israel, a close ally of the United States, has warned it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, making its own preparations for airstrikes. If the United States back downs, it is said to be "ready to attack.
Crooks and Liars:
ReplyDeleteCall the Capitol switchboard at 202-225-3121. We need to let our representatives know that Bush cannot attack Iran. GW will not go away quietly as his disastrous term comes to an end. I think most of us believe Iran is the next target on Bush and Cheney’s to-do list. Kristol, the equally insane Ledeen (read this madness) and all his Neocon, warmongering pals are pushing the White House at every moment to make the attack happen.
Flood the Switchboards Before It's Too Late.
So now Basham and Cornell is every day?
ReplyDeleteYou guys are really doing some good. Must make the trolls furious. They came in here a few years ago to shut you down, and instead you're batting 1000.
Way to go.
I think its great you're having Elizibeth Edwards on. I have nothing but respect for her and John and Her really are the kind of young couple that you can't help but like. They're good people and the country could do a lot worse than having a young vibrant president like John Edwards at the helm.
ReplyDeleteHe's the kind of image we need right now. Not the inred hillybilly good ole boy, but instead an educated, successful, articulate and compassionate leader. He could be another JFK.
ReplyDeleteI have some issues with him, but after 7 years of George W Bush, Edwards would be just fine.
ReplyDeleteMike
ReplyDelete===============================
What is this new term "Irani"?
The correct English word for things pertinent to Iran is "Iranian"!
Iran's struggle for nuclear energy predates teh Islamic Republic of Iran. They were in fact the Americans who were setting up the Bushehr reactor in the first place, before the revolution.
The American-backed war with Iraq, just derailed Iran from its natural technological derive. Iran is inversting in hydro and in wind energy as well.
To obtain nuclear energy is not ANY different from doing "stem cell research". Iran has done it's stem cell research and apparently they have also cloned a sheep. It is about scintific and technological advancement, and no one can tell Iran what kind of science it is entitled to practice!
Iran, unlike US and Israel, has signed to the non proliferation treaty.
Larry, did you see Petreaus' inteview with Jim Lehrer?
ReplyDeleteSomething that caught my attention was his emphasis on their ability to have curtailed the "Alquaeda" operation that "triggered the chain of sectarian killings" and that conducted barbaric attacks on US troops.
No mention of Iran or shiites!
Interesting.
Naj:
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Petraeus failure to mention Iran or the Shiites was an accident, I think it was purposely forgotten since their next step in that conflict, unless it is stopped.
Crooks and Liars are asking everyone to bombard Congress tomorrow with calls demanding their be no attack on Iran.
John Amato at Crooks and Liars has some inside info the attack is coming soon unless we force them to stop it.
The number to call is 202-225-3121
Naj said...
ReplyDeleteMike
===============================
What is this new term "Irani"?
The correct English word for things pertinent to Iran is "Iranian"!
Iran's struggle for nuclear energy predates teh Islamic Republic of Iran. They were in fact the Americans who were setting up the Bushehr reactor in the first place, before the revolution.
The American-backed war with Iraq, just derailed Iran from its natural technological derive. Iran is inversting in hydro and in wind energy as well.
To obtain nuclear energy is not ANY different from doing "stem cell research". Iran has done it's stem cell research and apparently they have also cloned a sheep. It is about scintific and technological advancement, and no one can tell Iran what kind of science it is entitled to practice!
Iran, unlike US and Israel, has signed to the non proliferation treaty."
Naj, I dont know what post of mine you are referring too?
Crooks and Liars:
ReplyDeleteCall the Capitol switchboard at 202-225-3121. We need to let our representatives know that Bush cannot attack Iran. GW will not go away quietly as his disastrous term comes to an end. I think most of us believe Iran is the next target on Bush and Cheney’s to-do list.
Flood the Switchboards Before It's Too Late.
Mike
ReplyDelete==================
Sorry sorry sorry! I was referring to
Clif's comments
======
about Iran's petroleum crisis. I was offering some facts. :)
Today on Basham and Cornell Radio at 8 A.M. live and simulcast, we interview Charlie Savage, Pulitzer prize winning journalist from the Boston Globe, who broke the story on Bush's signing statements (usurping the Geneva Convention's torture ban, among other things.)
ReplyDeleteCharlie’s new book is titled… "Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy." NATIONAL REPORTING
Don't forget, Congressman and Democratic presidential contender DENNIS KUCINICH will be our guest on on Monday September 17!
The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 a.m. Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern). All shows are simulcast on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at www.bashamandcornell.com
New thread is up - check out this interview (above.)
ReplyDelete