My friend Gary envisioned Barry (Barack) and Hillary skating off together in a fantasy sequence. At one point, I thought they were going to kiss. What sweet-nothings were they whispering in each other's ears at the end of the California debate last night? One thing I loved is that they each sanctified John Edwards. He is now a saint. They both vowed to champion his cause: poverty in America. (Read more on the amazing John Edwards below.) After losing both of our favorite Progressive candidates, Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards, it was a relief to hear both Hillary and Obama speak so clearly and passionately about the issues. I am relieved and would be happy with either of them as president.
"WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU" JOHN EDWARDS TELLS THE HOMELESS
Barack Obama: "John Edwards has spent a lifetime giving a voice to the voiceless."
I had the honor of interviewing John Edwards, his courageous wife Elizabeth and their daughter Cate on three separate occasions for our radio show. You can hear these interviews in the archives at Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk
I am very sad that he has decided to leave the campaign. His impassioned plea to help the poor deeply affected me. I think Edwards is one of the most committed public servants today, and I hope he becomes Attorney General— or even head of the FCC — as my friend and fellow blogger Mike says.
At each stop on his camaign tour John Edwards describes the dismay he felt when visiting a homeless shelter that must turn away 70 families each month for lack of space.
"Children. Living on the street in America," he says, pausing to let the image sink in. "All while Exxon-Mobil makes $40 billion. Last year, 37 million people in this country, about the population of California, went hungry. In the richest nation on the planet."
The Associated Press via Yahoo:
Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters’ sympathies but never diverted his campaign, The Associated Press has learned.
John ran a good campaign and vowed to stay in it all the way to the convention, but apparently that’s not going to happen. John’s populist message scared the daylights out of the wealthy elite and the corporate media, which ultimately hurt his coverage. We wish him and his family all the best.
____________________________________________
Edwards leaves the race having made a big impact on the two remaining candidates. His populist rhetoric forced his rivals to compete for union support, and he was the first out of the gate with detailed plans for universal healthcare and education, putting pressure on the field to match him. The former trial lawyer arguably won a majority of the debates, time and again challenging his opponents to refuse money from lobbyists and speed up their plans for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq.
What his exit will mean at the polls is less clear. On the one hand, it should help Obama consolidate the sizeable anti-Hillary contingency of the Democratic Party. At the same time, however, he drew more votes from Clinton than Obama in the first four contests — blue-collar white workers — so it could also help her fend off Obama, whose recent endorsement by Ted Kennedy should help with organized labor. Edwards announced no plans to endorse, but he has made his preference clear over the course of the campaign, dubbing himself and Obama candidates of change and Clinton the face of the "status quo." And if anyone should pay close attention to the race that Edwards has waged, it's Obama: if he doesn't win the nomination, four years from now he could be in John Edwards' shoes.
_________________________________
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry." Audrey Hepburn is famous for the poem "Time Tested Beauty Tips", which she used to recite to her sons. The poem includes verses such as, "For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day." The poem is popularly attributed to her, but it was in fact written by Sam Levenson.
Lydia Cornell said...
ReplyDeleteI am devastated that Edwards dropped out, and have been very sad all morning. We broke the news on the show today.
I loved interviewing John, Elizabeth and their daughter Cate -- on 3 separate occasions.
He is the true populist.
Edwards gave an amazing speech about the poor -- and I hope he is chosen as Attorney General because then he could make some serious changes to the corporate malaise...
more on this in a blog I'm posting now, including Obama's words."
Lydia, while I wouldnt mind Edwards as AG.............i'd Really love to see Edwards or Kucinich as head of the FCC so they could breal up the media empires and monopolies to insure truth in media and diversity of opinion!!!!
Great idea Mike!!
ReplyDeleteNow we will see who John Edwards really is and what his character is made of.
ReplyDeleteHis endorsement announcement will be mentioned 45 years from now when they write his obit.
I hope he hasn't brokered a deal with the Borg Queen.
Lydia...
ReplyDeleteI am too so sad...have been all day...
He really is the REAL deal..a man of Integrity and I truly Hope that he is a part of the Next Administration...esp Obama...I think that I could see the two of them working together to bring REAL Change....
I will miss he and his family and his VOICE on such important issues.....of OUR Country...and WE THE PEOPLE....
thank you to Mike, and you and larry and Cliff and Bartleee and Christopher for keeping his Messege and Hope for Change alive...
namaste
Enigma and Christopher -- I think an Obama/Edwards ticket would be incredible.
ReplyDeleteBARTLEBEE said...
ReplyDeleteTomCat said...
Bartlebee, I've heard talk from some about abandoning the party if Hillary wins. I could not disagree more.
Exactly TomCat. Abandoning the party might sound good in principle, but in practice, it just means another 4 years of Republican rule.
Right now, more than ever, we need cohesion on not just the left, but anyone who is sick of Bush and the neocons.
After 4 years of Hillary, maybe we can put together a grass roots movement that could take hold.
But doing that now just ensures another presidential loss, and we can't afford another one."
I couldnt agree more with what you just said here Bartlebe.........4 more years of repug rule will destroy this country it will become a fascist police state if the repugs win another Presidential race.
I'm hoping there is a Grassroots Progressive movement and that movement is led by men like Edwards and Kucinich.........I could honestly see both parties fracturing and part of the Democratic party becoming the Green Party and the repugs ressurecting A Libertarian Party that actually values Freedom, privacy, Democracy and fiscal conservatity............Of Course the MSM and corporate powers that be will resist this with everything they have as they want to maintain the deishonest 2 party monopoly that is much easier to control and manipulate.
BTW Bart.........I have to say I am surprised you donated to Edwards.........I thought you supported Obama and didnt care for Edwards?
ReplyDeleteChristopher said...
ReplyDeleteNow we will see who John Edwards really is and what his character is made of.
His endorsement announcement will be mentioned 45 years from now when they write his obit.
I hope he hasn't brokered a deal with the Borg Queen."
Christopher I honestly could never see Edwards endorsing Hillary!
This is not good news;
ReplyDeleteDid Rove Influence the 9/11 Report?
By Jefferson Morley
Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, communicated secretly with White House political strategist Karl Rove and other Bush administration officials, reports independent scholar Max Holland, citing an audio version of a forthcoming book by a New York Times reporter.
In his blog, Washington Decoded, Holland reports that Philip Shenon, who led the Times coverage of the Commission, has written a “blistering account” of Zelikow’s role overseeing the 20-month investigation.
He depicts Zelikow as exploiting his central position to negate or neutralize criticism of the Bush administration so that the White House would not bear, in November 2004, the political burden of failing to prevent the attacks.
Holland, known for his spirited defense of the Warren Commission whose conclusions about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy are widely disputed, says the 9/11 Commission’s veracity is now open to question.
Shenon’s radically different account of the commission’s inner workings promises to achieve what none of the crackpot conspiracy theorists have managed to do so far: put the 9/11 Commission in disrepute.
Shenon’s book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, will be published on Feb. 5 by Twelve Books.
*****************************************
By the way here is a little more of the incestuous ways the Bush administration people keep things "in house";
Philip D. Zelikow is Executive Director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, otherwise known as the 9-11 Commission.
* Member, Global Development Program Advisory Panel, Gates Foundation [1]
There's a raft of evidence to suggest that Zelikow has personal, professional and political reasons not to see the commission hold Rice and other Bush officials accountable for pre-9/11 failings, and may be the de facto swing vote for Republicans on the panel.[1] Here are just a few of them:
* He and Rice worked closely together in the first Bush White House as aides to former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. Zelikow was director of European security affairs, and Rice was senior director of Soviet and East European affairs, as well as special assistant to the president. Rice reportedly hired Zelikow. Both started in 1989 and left in 1991.
* A few years after leaving the White House, Zelikow and Rice wrote a book together called, "Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft."
* The two associated again when Zelikow directed the Aspen Strategy Group [2], a foreign-policy strategy body co-chaired by Rice's mentor Scowcroft. Rice, along with Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, were members.
* Zelikow also directed the Markle Foundation's Task Force on National Security in the Information Age [3]under co-chairman James Barksdale, a Bush adviser and major Bush-Cheney donor. A 9/11 commissioner, Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, also served with Zelikow on the task force. (Interestingly, the pair serves together on yet another panel - The National Commission on Federal Election Reform - with Gorton acting as vice-chairman and Zelikow as executive director.)
* After the 2000 election, Zelikow and Rice were reunited when George W. Bush named him to his transition team for the National Security Council.
[The one which IGNORED Bin Forgotten and al Qaeda]
Rice reportedly asked Zelikow to help organize the NSC under the Scowcroft model, which was insular and steeped in Cold War worldview.
* Former White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke says he briefed not only Rice and Hadley, but also Zelikow about the growing al-Qaida threat during the transition period. Zelikow sat in on the briefings, he says.
* A month after the 9/11 al-Qaida attacks, President Bush appointed Zelikow to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which is chaired by Scowcroft.
At Rice's request, Zelikow was the primary writer of the administration's post-Sept. 11 national security strategy, which first outlined the intellectual rationale for preemptive war as a key tool in U.S. foreign policy.
[You know the policy which justified attacking Iraq]
Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow, insists Zelikow has a "clear conflict of interest." And she suspects he is in touch with Bush's political adviser, Rove, which she says would explain why the White House granted him, along with just one other commission official, the greatest access to the intelligence briefing Bush got a month before the 9/11 suicide hijackings.
This is interesting HE got more clearance then the majority of Commission members!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In essence he could pre screen what the commission saw.
Typical Rove move here, move along nothing to see ......
The commission findings are what Rove and bush wanted don't worry about HOW the commission arrived at it's findings.
And even more interesting since Zelikow, who was appointed in February 2005 as a counselor to Condi Rice, which means he plays a critical role in formulating policy at the State Department.
Why is this troubling?
Well about the invasion itself he said;
"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel," Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation.
"And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell," said Zelikow.
from Emad Mekay for IPS, 29 March 2004
The statements are the first to surface from a source closely linked to the Bush administration acknowledging that the war, which has so far cost the lives of nearly 4000 U.S. troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, was motivated by Washington's desire to defend the Jewish state.
and his current "job";
On 2007-08-24, Glenn Greenwald reported on his Salon blog that Zelikow was working as a lobbyist employed by Former Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi (and future Prime Minister Hopeful) to discredit Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and appeared on programs as an expert on Iraq criticising Maliki while withholding his conflict of interest and also worked as a consultant to the White House on Iraq at the time the White House began disparaging Maliki.
Still pushing that neo-con stone long after Iraq has become a total political failure with US troops being held hostage by a president who can never admit a mistake.
Enigma isnt it a shame that Real Progressive and populist candidates that Really care about the people like Edwards are sp blatantly and obviously marginalized and denied the air time that candidates that are bought and paid for like Hillary get.
ReplyDeleteMike said...
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping there is a Grassroots Progressive movement and that movement is led by men like Edwards and Kucinich.........
Sure, but not this election. There isn't time. Novembers not far away now, and we'll be voting soon. Unless someone steps up now, and I mean NOW, with lots of money and some high level support then I think its either Hilary or Barak.
I'm willing to give either of them a try. If I had to pick one which I don't, I'd pick Obama. But either of them will be fine.
Any movements like that this year would simply divide the party and ensure a republican win.
ReplyDeleteFunny Ru-die CLAIMS to believe in John McCain just after admitting he ran against the man he "believed in".
ReplyDeleteInteresting story at Alternet, about CNN beating Fox Noise for viewers in this campaign season,
ReplyDeleteand Don't even ask about Fox business network.
After two months on the air, Fox Business Network, available in 30 million homes, was attracting, on average, just 6,300 viewers on any given weekday, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was good for a nearly invisible .05 rating. (By comparison, CNBC during that period was attracting 265,000 viewers.)
Making matters worse for Ailes was the fact that on January 22, as fears mounted about a possible global financial crisis, CNBC posted its best ratings in seven years, attracting 401,000 viewers that day.
The hurdle for Fox Business Network has always been simple: Why would investors and day traders in search of reliable business information turn from CNBC over to the Fox brand, which is so well-known for passing along one-sided information? News Corp. always assumed Fox News would help launch the business channel. But Fox News is taken seriously by so few people, it may be hurting the business launch.
That's very telling, THE people who might watch Fox noise for their propaganda, DO NOT watch anything Fox when their making money depends on it.
they really DO NOT TRUST the Fox brand when it comes to the truth,
CNBC the business unit of NBC gets their trust.
So in essence they trust NBC over Fox when it comes to the truth.
Put that one in your pipes and smoke it, tallltexan and voltron ...... and freedom fan since the owner of the not trusted fox brand has bought the Wall Street Journal.
BARTLEBEE said...
ReplyDeleteAny movements like that this year would simply divide the party and ensure a republican win."
Exactly............and THATS why the threat of Bloomberg entering the race COULD push the Delegates and Super Delegates into supporting Obama even if Hillary wins more primaries and appears to be the stronger candidate.
Bloomberg would hurt Hillary MORE than any other candidate and COULD tip things to the repugs.......right now that is the repugs greatest hope!
Mike,
ReplyDeleteMy sources report Illinois Dems are quietly discussing Edwards as Obama's Attorney General.
Can't wait to kick Sen. Chuck Schumer's Michael "I don't knwo if waterboarding is torture" Mukasey back to retirement.
Restore some honor to the Depratment of Justice!
Here is how reichwingers view their fellow Americans,
ReplyDeleteIN THEIR OWN WORDS;
In response to this story;
Vermont anti-Bush petition lambasted
Here is how commenters from the fraud called malkin's blog react, (NO I won't insult your intelligence with a link, the reichwingers already have it, and she don't need the traffic)
On January 30th, 2008 at 11:35 am, Brian72 said:
I disagree with you there, Boomer. If the state of Vermont tries to secede from the Union, the only choice is to invade and occupy Vermont with National Guard troops from Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas.
Lots of fuel-guzzling military hardware like Abrams tanks, Bradleys, 2-1/2 ton truck convoys, Blackhawks, Super Stallions and Chinooks. Jackbooted soldiers of Capitalist Empire on every street corner, openly carrying loaded weapons and Bibles too, for good measure.
Arrest all the Communists and Socialists, make all the Democrats wear a big electric blue “D” on their clothing, and appoint a Republican Conservative Governor, like say Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL).
Then watch the fun of all those twits up there living their worst right-wing fascist capitalist nightmare.
One can dream.
He lets a little truth slip out there.
He even admits his dreams are right-wing fascist dreams.
and;
On January 30th, 2008 at 12:16 pm, On-my-soap-box said:
If I were POTUS or the VP even, I would have been there the moment they even mentioned I would be arrested. As soon as I was arrested and held against my will, I would call for an extraction and then an air strike. After the dust settled, I would sell the land to American Indians (AMERICANS) to build casino’s on.
Alas, a man can dream.
More truth about what reichwingers WANT done to Americans they disagree with.
Bomb them?
Isn't that a terrorist position?
But this CLOWN takes the cake;
On January 30th, 2008 at 3:42 pm, pokenhorn said:
President Bush did what Neville Chamberlain of England, France, the U.S.A. should have done in 1936 when Hitler marched his troops into the Rhineland. WW 2 might have been avoided. There would have been casualties, and political jackals would have made much over the folly of such ‘overreaction’, much as the Democraps have done for 4 years over Iraq. I hope we suffer one more good attack. A dirty nuke, say, or a cloud of anthrax right in the town square of Brattleboro. I cannot believe that minimally decent adults would behave as the Brattleboro brats have. Ick. May you get what you deserve.
A dirty nuke?
Shades of Bill-O's call for an attack on San fran?
"Minimally decent adults" are against a person or group of persons using their first admenment right of free speech,
but he thinks one would approve of his calls for an dirty nuke attack?
And they wonder why we call them reichwingers ........wanting people in the USA to be attacked by their own government,
let along WISHING a 9-11 style attack on them.
They show their TRUE colors from time to time.
Thanks Clif, Christopher and Lydia...and Mike and Bartlebee and Larry for having this thread...
ReplyDeletewe need to HOPE that Something Good will come from all of this....
( I gave money- small pittances- to Edwards- 04 and 08 .....yes, to Kucinich and of course Obama...I figured since the media was soooo busy squashing THEIR Voices and their Messeges...my little 10cents here and there might somehow help the process....but to be honest I think Edwards got very short thrift by the MSM.....it was awful to watch)..
Anyways....thank you for keeping the Dream Alive.... that WE the People get OUR Country Back.....
We'll see how much of an impact Edwards had on the DLC twins later. I hope it was a bigger impact than I suspect it was.
ReplyDeleteThe first secession will cause a chain-reaction of them, be it Vermont, California, or even Tennessee, which recently hosted a secession conference.
ReplyDeleteThe Federal Government is a predatory entity, and its victims are the people of the United states of America. The Federal Government has abrogated and abandoned the Constitution of the United States of America, and in so doing has erased any meaningful claim to legitimacy over the States and the people of the United States.
The States that ratified the Constitution, therefore, are not bound to adhere to the writ of the illegal Federal Government. They ARE obligated to uphold the Constitution the Federal Government has abrogated. I wish they'd get to work ojn it.
The economy nearly stalled in the fourth quarter with a growth rate of just 0.6 percent, capping its worst year since 2002.
ReplyDeleteThe Commerce Department's report on the gross domestic product, released Wednesday, showed an economy that had deteriorated considerably during the October-to-December quarter as worsening problems in the housing market and harder-to-get credit made individuals and businesses more cautious in their spending. Fears of a recession have grown.
For all of 2007, the economy grew by just 2.2 percent, the weakest performance in five years, when the country was struggling to recover from the 2001 recession. The housing collapse dealt the economy its biggest blow last year. Builders slashed spending on housing projects by 16.9 percent on an annualized basis, the most in 25 years.
"The economy has been subject to something of the perfect storm here. It has been hit by the housing slump the credit squeeze, the subprime slime and stock price declines on Wall Street," said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "The economy is weathering some pretty stormy seas but it is weak."
The fourth-quarter's performance was much weaker -- half the pace -- than economists were expecting. They were forecasting growth to clock in a 1.2 percent pace.
The 0.6 percent annualized increase in gross domestic product (GDP) marked a big loss of momentum from the third quarter's brisk, 4.9 percent showing. The fourth-quarter pace was the slowest since the first quarter of last year.
The GDP figures come as worries mount that the country is on the verge of a recession or perhaps is already sliding into one.
To help bolster the economy, the Federal Reserve was poised Wednesday to again cut interest rates. An afternoon announcement was expected.
The fragile economic situation has spurred rare cooperation among Democrats, Republicans and the White House to quickly enact legislation to stimulate the economy.
GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is the best barometer of the country's economic health.
Consumers whose spending is critical to the economy's well-being tightened their belts.
In the fourth quarter, consumer spending slowed to a pace of 2 percent, down from a 2.8 percent growth rate in the prior quarter. For all of last year, consumers boosted spending by 2.9 percent, the smallest increase since 2003.
Businesses also watched their spending more closely during the final quarter of last year. Fearing a lessening appetite from their customers, they cut inventories of goods. That shaved 1.25 percentage points from fourth-quarter GDP, the most in a year.
Spending by businesses on equipment and software slowed to a pace of 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter. For the year, such spending was up just 1.4 percent, the worst showing since 2002.
Sales of U.S. goods and services abroad also slowed sharply in the fourth quarter. Exports grew at a 3.9 percent pace, compared with a sizzling 19.1 percent growth rate in the third quarter. That strong export growth was a key reason why the economy performed so well as a whole in the prior quarter. For all of 2007, exports grew by 7.9 percent, the slowest in two years.
Meanwhile, inflation picked up sharply during the final quarter. However, for all of 2007, it moderated slightly.
A gauge of inflation linked to the GDP report showed that "core" prices -- excluding food and energy -- grew at a rate of 2.7 percent in the fourth quarter. That was up from a 2 percent rate in the prior quarter and was the biggest quarterly increase since the spring of 2006.
For all of last year, core prices went up 2.1 percent, down from 2.2 percent in 2006.
High energy prices are a double-edged sword. They can put a damper on growth and also stoke inflation, which would be a dangerous combination for the economy.
The inflation figures could complicate the Fed's job of trying to energize overall economic growth while also keeping inflation under control.
Some analysts think the economy is on pace to recede from January through March. Under one rough rule, the economy would have to contract for six months in a row for the country is considered to be in a recession. The odds of a recession have risen sharply over the last year, and analysts increasingly believe the U.S. will be in one during the first half of this year.
The big worry is that consumers will clamp down on spending and businesses will put a lid on capital spending and hiring, throwing the economy into a tailspin.
The collapse of the housing market, soured mortgage investments and much harder-to-get credit are weighing on people and businesses alike. Foreclosures have hit record highs and banks have wracked up multibillion losses. The fallout has shaken Wall Street, catapulted the economy as Topic A among voters and galvanized political figures, including those vying to be the next president.
Who lives in a Super Tuesday state?
ReplyDeleteLydia,
ReplyDeleteI do. New York.
Me too, California
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth is going on with McCain? What is he? He seems mean like a 7th grade bully, with a Cruella DeVille laugh -- but I can't figure out what he represents. He loves war, wants perpetual war .. but is against torture, for which he is maligned by the Repubs.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find so funny is watching McCain and Romney bickering about who supports this unholy war more!!
I'm in a Super Tuesday state -- Missouri
ReplyDeleteI live in a super Thursday state.
ReplyDeleteI have a request, those that are voting on Super tuesday- please please let us know how it goes- What happens at the polls- anything interesting we might not know ( ie- your poll ran out of ballots- the lines were 10 blocks long etc)....
ReplyDeleteI will leave an open thread up that night on Watergate Summer....thank you....
( I am Ohio- so I am not until March ;-(
E 4 E don't feel bad, I live in Kentucky and we get to vote in our primary on Tuesday 20 May 2008.
ReplyDeleteBAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber blew herself up at the main pet market in central Baghdad, killing at least 46 people and wounding dozens, police said, the deadliest bombing to strike the capital since 30,000 more American forces flooded into central Iraq last spring.
ReplyDeleteAbout 20 minutes later, a second female suicide bomber struck another bird market in a predominantly Shiite area in southeastern Baghdad. That blast killed at least 18 people and wounded 25, police said.
The attacks shortly before the weekly Islamic call to prayer resounded across the capital were the latest in a series of violent incidents that have been chipping away at Iraqi confidence in the permanence of recent security gains.
The first blast occurred about 10:20 a.m. when the woman detonated explosives hidden under her traditional black robe at the central al-Ghazl market. The pet bazaar had recently re-emerged as a popular shopping venue as Baghdad security improved and a Friday ban on driving was lifted.
Firefighters scooped up debris scattered among pools of blood, clothing and pigeon carcasses.
"Surge On"
BRADBLOG reports something strange: that the mainstream press (several news sources) have already announced that there will be delays in getting the results of Super Tuesday out.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, they are pre-announcing that there will be no election results until a day or two later than usual.
Brad reports that this is horrifying/scary. Why? Why are they pre-announcing a delay in the ballot results?
U.S. employers cut 17,000 non-farm jobs in January, the first time in nearly 4-1/2 years that U.S. payrolls shrank as continuing losses in construction and manufacturing reflected the economy's waning momentum.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bush.
Karl Rove to join Fox News Channel…
ReplyDeleteICN hears that Karl Rove will join Fox News Channel as a contributor and will likely be used throughout Super Tuesday coverage…
What's the big deal, they used to mouth his press releases as truth before, no they will just let him do it in person.
Borg Queen's Campaign Took Rezko Cash
ReplyDeleteLos Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a national co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, banked at least $1,500 in political donations from an indicted Chicago businessman whose past connections to Barack Obama have been used by Clinton to criticize her rival’s judgment and ethics.
City records show Antoin Rezko, chairman of Rezmar Corp. of Chicago, contributed $1,000 to Villaraigosa’s mayoral campaign in May 2001. Those records show Rezko also donated $500 to another Villaraigosa political committee in March 2003.
Asked to confirm whether the mayor received donations from Rezko, spokesman Sean Clegg said “the contributions are currently under review.”
Lydia:
ReplyDeleteDid Brad have any other news or info ? that is really strange....
( Clif May ???? wow..that is late....)
LA Times and MoveOn and SIEU all endorsed Obama today...ALL in one day...Now that is What Momentum looks like ;-)
The failed Presidency of George W. Bush
ReplyDeletePresident Bush is a forgotten man. Giving his last State of the Union speech, he was overshadowed by a tempest in a teapot. (Did Barack Obama snub Hillary Clinton or merely turn to talk with another senator?)
We need a breather from the campaign, so we will focus on why history is likely to record George W. Bush's eight years in office as a failed presidency.
Ideology has nothing to do with it; Bush had the opportunity to be a great president.
Former President Clinton famously complained that his term could never be acclaimed as "great" because he never presided over a war. (Instead he had peace and prosperity and squandered them, accomplishing little of moment.)
After 9/11, Bush could have become a great leader. But the very day that hell spewed from the skies, Bush did not know whether or not to return from Florida to Washington. His eventual leadership in those terrible weeks was steadfast but he used up the good will of most of the world by pushing his doctrine of preemption. Invading Iraq on false pretenses, he has overseen a war that has lasted longer than our participation in World War II with far less to show for it.
Bush's contribution to education (aside from mangled syntax) has been the No Child Left Behind Act. But it has amounted to an unfunded mandate on the states and embroiled thousands in angry confrontation by making teachers teach only what children need to pass tests and forcing cutbacks in such subjects as art and music.
Bush leaves the country with a $9.2 trillion debt, largely because of the war in Iraq, which he defends against all criticism. In an infuriating gesture, he waited until this month -- seven years too late -- to declare war on earmarks, the congressional practice of quietly tucking money away in the budget for special home-state projects.
He espoused the philosophy of "compassionate conservatism" but then abandoned it, leaving a few desultory "faith-based initiatives" and a larger gap between rich and poor. Not a thing has been done to help people with no health insurance, but he vetoed a plan to expand children's access to health care. He vows to cut out 151 popular programs to save $18 billion but has spent $609 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan.
He demanded that Social Security be privatized, but when the country vigorously protested, he gave up trying to keep entitlements from eventual meltdown.
With the nation fighting to stave off recession as food and energy prices soar and home foreclosures mount, he didn't have his own stimulus plan but endorsed a too-little-too-late plan devised in the House to give taxpayers rebate checks and incentives to businesses. He vowed to veto one-time checks for seniors dependent on Social Security or extension of unemployment assistance for the jobless. And how did his administration miss the signs that financial institutions were in crisis over sub-prime mortgages?
Bush's foreign policy dissolved into gauzy nothingness, victim of the endless war in Iraq. His legacy will be insisting, without factual basis, that democracy would spring "sui generis" to life in the Middle East and that Iran, Iraq and North Korea were an "axis of evil."
With evidence indisputable that the world faces a serious challenge in global warming, Bush abrogated what should have been U.S. leadership to deflect tomorrow's catastrophe. As for pursuing energy independence, for years he gave little but lip service.
Federal agencies are in disarray. Those supposed to guard the public's health, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Product Safety Administration and Food and Drug Administration, are widely conceded to be broken.
With debate raging over immigration, Bush could not even stake out a leadership position in his own party. Having stirred up a hornet's nest on the issue, he went inside the house and left it to others to deal with the stingers.
Hurricane Katrina and the bridge collapse in Minneapolis were stark testimony to the nation's crumbling infrastructure. But Bush had no plan to prepare the country to face fixing its roads, bridges and levees or care for its victims.
After the exhausting Clinton presidency, Bush had a strong economy and Americans' good will. The last eight years have been tumultuous, marked by arrogance, Bush's refusal to listen to the oldest and wisest in his own party and staggering incompetence.
It is difficult to believe that the e-mails the White House purposefully deleted, or the thoughtful letters Bush never wrote or the memoirs of disdained members of his Cabinet, such as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, will cause historians to reverse that assessment.
There is good reason why the president's disapproval rating has been over 50 percent for longer than that of any other president in half a century. There is good reason why the GOP candidates almost never mention his name.
As Bush's would-be successors bark and bicker, joust and jostle, it is useful not to forget Bush or why we stage this contest every four years and what is at stake.
(Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters has covered the White House and national politics since 1986.
Hsitory should not be kind to the Criminal in Chief..I personally think he should face Criminal Charges, and not just for the Illegal War..but also for the Knowing Endangerment and Criminal Negligence of his Regime......
ReplyDeletebut that is just me...
( great article Larry)
Check out this post by Jolly Roger on an extremely morbid duo beginming to form.
ReplyDeleteHint: One is Twiggy Coulter.
Reconstitution
Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company _ $40.6 billion _ on Friday as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteExxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.
Exxon: Another subsidiary of Bush INC.
The U.S. military isn't ready for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces don't have the equipment or training they need for the job, a commission charged by Congress reported Thursday.
ReplyDeleteEven fewer Army National Guard units are combat-ready today than were nearly a year ago when the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves determined that 88 percent of the units were not prepared for the fight, the panel said in its report.
The independent commission is charged by Congress to recommend changes in law and policy concerning the Guard and Reserves.
Lawmakers say they will push ahead with a presidential commission designed to root out waste and fraud in military contracts despite President Bush's concerns that it could usurp his authority.
ReplyDeleteBush signed into law on Monday a wide-ranging defense bill that includes instructions to create a commission to investigate defense contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is modeled after a similar commission that was headed by Harry Truman in the 1940s to uncover abuse in military contracts during World War II.
Along with his signature, Bush singled out the commission and three other provisions that could "purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the president's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations."
George W Bush: Protecting murderers and criminals.
I think Annie Coulter was the only Hillary Endorser today ???....
ReplyDeleteThe Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript Monday of the most recent videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group's goal is to force America into bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteAl-Jazeera aired portions of the videotape Friday but released the full transcript of the entire tape on its Web site Monday.
"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.
It's too late: Bush has already brought America into bankruptcy.
Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:
ReplyDelete___
ABC's "This Week" — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.
___
CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill.
___
NBC's "Meet the Press" — Republican strategists Mary Matalin and Mike Murphy; Democratic strategists Bob Shrum and James Carville.
___
CNN's "Late Edition" — Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.; Romney; Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and former presidential candidate.
___
"Fox News Sunday" — McCain and Clinton.
President Bush wants to cut funding for teaching hospitals and freeze medical research in a $3 trillion budget for 2009 that is still likely to generate a record deficit once war costs are tallied up.
ReplyDeleteThe Bush budget to be submitted Monday would cut the budget for the Health and Human Services Department by $2 billion, or 3 percent. By contrast, the Pentagon would get a $35 billion increase to $515 billion for core programs, with war costs additional.
With tax revenues falling as the economy slows — and with the deficit-financed economic stimulus bill adding more than $150 billion in red ink to federal ledgers over 2008-2009 — the White House acknowledges that the budget deficit for this year and next is projected to reach $400 billion or more.
The largest-ever budget deficit, $413 billion, was recorded in 2004. Bush's budget will forecast a deficit for 2009 that's below that, an administration official said. But that assumes costs of $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, well below the almost $200 billion request for this year.
Even if a Democrat is elected president and begins troop withdrawals, tens of billions of dollars more will be needed, which would bring the deficit well above the $413 billion record.
And if the economy slides into recession, deficits would grow ever higher. The Bush budget predicts gross domestic product growth of 2.9 percent for 2008, an administration official said, much higher than private sector economists predict. If growth doesn't meet administration expectations, the deficit would spike higher as tax revenues fall even more.
Economists say the best way to measure the deficit is against the size of the economy, and at about 3 percent of gross domestic product, the 2008-2009 deficits aren't much higher than historical averages. To the average member of the public, however, the raw figures are eye-popping, and Bush's successor is likely to feel pressure to rein the deficit under control.
Bush has promised his budget will keep the government on track to run a surplus in 2012. But the steps required to do that — and keep his promise to extend tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 beyond their expiration at the end of 2010 — are hardly realistic.
For starters, his budget contains no war costs beyond 2009 and fails to address the huge cost of keeping more and more taxpayers from feeling the bite of the alternative minimum tax.
Bush's budget plan will also, on average, freeze most domestic programs funded by Congress each year. Since departments such as Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security will be getting increases, that means other agencies would bear difficult cuts.
The budget for the Health and Human Services Department, for example, would be reduced by almost 3 percent under the Bush budget plan to be released Monday. The $2 billion in HHS cuts are about double the size of the reductions Bush sought last year; Democrats controlling Congress rejected them.
Congress is ultimately likely to reject the cuts again, but the White House played a tough hand in last year's budget battle and the gulf between the two could mean gridlock that would tie up the agency's budget until Bush's successor takes office. The cuts would hit HHS programs funded by Congress each year.
These reductions would be in addition to almost $200 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years that administration officials acknowledge are in Bush's budget. Much of the savings would come from freezing reimbursement rates for most health care providers for three years.
Congress rejected a smaller package of cuts last year, and there's no reason to think they would rise to the challenge in an election year. The proposed savings from Medicare and Medicaid are about three times the cuts proposed last year.
Within HHS programs, Bush would eliminate a $302 million program that gives grants to children's hospitals to subsidize medical education. A $300 million program for public health improvement projects would be eliminated, while grants to improve health care in rural areas would be cut by 87 percent.
The Centers for Disease Control's budget would face a 7 percent reduction of $433 million. The budget for a program to treat and monitor the health of first responders and others exposed to toxins at the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks would be cut by 77 percent, from $108 million this year to $25 million in 2009.
The National Institutes of Health, which funds health research grants, would see its budget frozen at $29.5 billion.
A program providing grants to help mental health and substance abuse providers update their treatment programs would be cut almost in half. Bush also would eliminate a new $49 million program to help states provide health insurance to people who are ailing and cannot obtain health insurance in the commercial market.
There are a few increases, however. The Food and Drug Administration would receive a 6 percent boost to $2.4 billion to ramp up food and drug safety efforts. Head Start would receive a 2 percent increase to $7 billion. Abstinence education programs popular with social conservatives would get a 25 percent increase to $137 million.
At the same time, a popular program that provides heating subsidies to the poor would be cut by $570 million, to $2 billion.
As expected, the budget would eliminate the $654 million Community Services Block Grant program, which provides seed money for community action agencies that help the poor. That cut was proposed last year, but Congress rejected it on a bipartisan basis.
Within the Education Department, Title I grants, the main source of federal funding for poor students, would get $14.3 billion, about a 3 percent increase from this year, under the administration's proposal. About half of the nation's schools, and two-thirds of elementary schools, receive Title I funding.
The administration proposes to spend about $11.3 billion for special education services for students with disabilities, an increase of roughly $330 million.
The Bush Budget Plan: Rob Services For the Hurting While Enriching Profits For Wars.
this is a NAZI budget- the elderly, infirmed, disabled, and dying and children, even the Sick Homeless VETS, are all Subsidizing his war....HIS ILLEGAL WAR.
ReplyDeletethis can not be allowed anymore......
He is a Criminal....
maybe I should not say that it is a Nazi budget- but that is how Hitler subsidized his powers and invasions....and war...and he rewrote laws with crooked lawyers so that it was all, always legal....
ReplyDeleteThis is now what our Country does...
Not even Reagon would have passed such a horrific budget and called it fair....
( or even Nixon....)
Enigma,
ReplyDeleteNobody seems to be paying attention to anything this cretion is doing.
It is a Nazi Budget submitted by a Nazi Warlord.
ReplyDeleteIn its freshest set of troubles, the American Red Cross is cutting a third of the 3,000 jobs at its national headquarters in an overhaul intended to eliminate a $200 million deficit within two years.
ReplyDeleteThe charity's board of governors gave general approval to the cutbacks in January, and details of department-by-department layoffs will be presented to the board later this month, chief public affairs officer Suzy DeFrancis said.
"This is a difficult period, when people are anxious about their jobs," DeFrancis said. "At the same time, there's a realization that the financial realities we're facing have forced us to do this ... and we can become a stronger organization by going through it."
George W Bush: Destroying agencies that help the hurting while funding those who profit from war.
Dell Inc said on Thursday it will close its call center in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada, and eliminate most of the facility's 900 jobs in the second quarter as it consolidates customer-service operations.
ReplyDeleteDell, the world's second-largest personal computer maker, also said it had decided to scrap plans to open a second customer service center in Ottawa.
Another result of the faltering Bush economy.
The Red Cross has chronically had $$$ troubles....more of the management origin than true trouble...they had alot of money sent in after 911...and Katrina...
ReplyDeleteI worked with and for them out west....
But I have been reluctant to work with them again..
I did give them some help after the Fires...
but I am not sure I want to volunteer for them again ( on a regular basis
Sad really, because they used to have a good Emergency Response /Preparedness Plan that they used to work as a team with Salvation Army and FEMA.....but those days are gone...Homeland Security has decimated ALL of that....
Lydia:
ReplyDeleteI hope that you stop by this weekend...I have made Friday my Hopemongering day....
Gnite Larry...no one else around...gnite Mike, Christopher and Cliff...
CPAC Organizers Dump Ann Coulter From This Year’s Speaking List
ReplyDeleteOn February 7-9, conservatives from around the country will gather in Washington, D.C. for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). This year, one of the darlings of the far right’s oft-distasteful and unpleasant punditry will not be invited:
She’s always been outrageous, but when conservative Ann Coulter talked of 9/11 “rag heads” at the 2006 Conservative Political Action Conference and linked the slur “faggot” to Sen. John Edwards in a 2007 speech, CPAC’s organizers decided to cut her from the list of speakers at the February 7-9 conference expected to draw 6,000.
At CPAC 2006, Coulter referred to Muslims as “raghead[s].” At CPAC 2007, she said she couldn’t “really talk about” then-Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards because “you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’”
What a shame: At Least She Will Have More Time To Campaign For Hillary.
SAN DIEGO, CA -- About 40 minutes into a speech Clinton was delivering in front of a huge crowd at San Diego State University, two young men stood up and unfurled a red banner that read: "Nepotist tyrant hands off Iran", with the senator's picture attached to the middle.
ReplyDeleteThe men had been seated behind Clinton -- and directly across from the press riser -- as she spoke and she had her back to them the entire time they were standing. She never turned their way and it was unclear whether she was aware they were there.
The students stood for several minutes as a handful of Clinton supporters came up each side of the aisle to talk to them. Eventually, a man wearing a yellow SMART union for Hillary T-shirt snatched the banner from the men. The crowd cheered.
The senator did not take questions after the event.
Clinton has been criticized for her vote to call the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which she has repeatedly said was not a vote to authorize force.
Poor Iron Maiden.
(Reuters Life!) - The Grateful Dead, the San Francisco cult rock band that has played at political events since the 1960s, will reunite on Monday for the first time in four years to rally support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a spokesman said on Friday.
ReplyDeleteBand leader Jerry Garcia died in 1995. Surviving members have played together occasionally since then, most recently in 2004. On Monday, original members Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir will play at a San Francisco theater a day before California's primary.
"They have agreed to reunite for this one-time-only event in order to lend support to Senator Obama leading into the crucial 'Super-Tuesday' series of primaries held on Tuesday, February 5th," the band said in a statement.
Chrysler LLC scrambled to maintain its inventory of plastic parts after a supplier filed for bankruptcy protection.
ReplyDeletePlastech Engineered Products Inc. apparently failed to negotiate a bailout package with its customers, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Dearborn-based Plastech agreed to supply Chrysler through the weekend, spokeswoman Michele Tinson said.
The bankruptcy filing had not forced Chrysler to shut down any plants, Tinson said. "But it could potentially," she said. "It could impact a number of plants."
The Bush Recession is getting worse.
(Reuters) - President George W. Bush will seek $140.7 billion on Monday for the U.S. Army in fiscal 2009, including increased funds to buy helicopters and other equipment, according to budget documents obtained by Reuters.
ReplyDeleteThat request would be 8 percent higher than the Army budget requested for fiscal 2008.
Will this be enough for Blackwater???
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is the latest big-name endorsement for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, lending his gravitas in the financial world to a presidential candidate whose biggest hurdle is to convince voters he is experienced enough to be president.
ReplyDelete“After 30 years in government, serving under five Presidents of both parties and chairing two non-partisan commissions on the Public Service, I have been reluctant to engage in political campaigns. The time has come to overcome that reluctance,” Mr. Volcker said in a statement today. “However, it is not the current turmoil in markets or the economic uncertainties that have impelled my decision. Rather, it is the breadth and depth of challenges that face our nation at home and abroad. Those challenges demand a new leadership and a fresh approach.”
He concluded: “It is only Barack Obama, in his person, in his ideas, in his ability to understand and to articulate both our needs and our hopes that provide the potential for strong and fresh leadership. That leadership must begin here in America but it can also restore needed confidence in our vision, our strength, and our purposes right around the world.”
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal
The Transport Workers Union, which represents 140,000 active workers, is expected to announce Friday that it will become the first union that had backed John Edwards to switch its endorsement to Barack Obama, one union adviser said Thursday night. The union, which endorsed Mr. Edwards, last September represents transit workers in New York City, flight attendants at Southwest Airlines and ground crew for American Airlines.
ReplyDeleteThe Transport Workers Union is especially strong in New York State because the union’s New York City branch, Local 100, with more than 30,000 members, is one of the city’s largest and most vocal unions. The union, which is based in Manhattan also claims 60,000 retirees nationwide as members.
Hi Lydia,
ReplyDeleteI'm still bemoaning Dennis Kucinich's leaving the race but will never give up hope that he will return to his rightful place in the Oval Office.
Meanwhile, I just want a President/Vice President that I can have RESPECT for (sorry, Hillary this doesn't include you OR your pseudo marriage) and a government that doesn't bully other countries with their agendas like the Bush Administration did.
Oh to see less crying people due to these warmongering Republicans!!
"RETURN" to his rightful place in the Oval Office?
ReplyDeleteWhen was Kucinich in the Oval Office?
Larry,
ReplyDeleteit does look like Annie will have more time to campaign for Hill...so I just caught up on your news here- and apparently Hill is back to not taking questions- shocking right? Interesting that no one stopped the Banner People....( and I am suprised THAT Vote has not been talked about more).....
The DEAD...wow..that is like sooooo amazing
Christopher:
That is really good news...Also if you got to Roboert Reich's blog- he has a pretty scathing post up for Bill Clinton- I was kind of surpised....I think I have the link on my blog...
Well, from Media land...STILL alot of HILL coverage...and Not as much Obama...( MSNBC is doing crime shows all day- way to go....cspan had a Hill event- Maxine Waters, Magic Johnson, Gray Davis, and a bunch of people that I didn't know or had never heard of...
Bad thing- so sorry about Kucinich....don't worry he will have a Role in the NEXT administration.....and selfishly I don;t want him in the Oval office ( cuz Ohio reallllllly needs him....)
Lydia and Larry- I have a NEW post up explaining the Healthcare Issues so people understand a bit better what it is all about...
A critical mass of John Edwards’s LGBT steering committee is going public with support for Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton.
ReplyDeleteThe Advocate reports:
A critical mass of John Edwards’s LGBT steering committee is going public with support for Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton. Twenty-two members of the Edwards campaign’s original 59-person gay and lesbian committee will now be working for Obama victories next Tuesday and throughout the rest of the primary season.
By Ethel Kennedy
ReplyDeleteOver these past few years, I've watched Senator Obama inspire Americans from all walks of life to believe in real change and a new sense of hope and possibility. He's a magnetic force, drawing the nation together for the common good and galvanizing us all to help shape our country's future.
Barack is so like Bobby, who struggled for the rights of the poor in the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia, traveled to California to stand in solidarity with Cesar Chavez and farm workers and fought to end another war that cost so many lives.
Today, we crave a leader with vision who can help us regain our lost humanity and rekindle our inherent generosity. With courage, caring and charisma, Senator Obama is leading us toward a kinder, gentler world.
Senator Obama's candidacy sends out "ripples of hope" that can build a "current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." I am proud to support Barack Obama, and look forward to him leading this country toward a brighter, more hopeful future.
TechCrunch reports that News Corp is also frantically trying to put together a competing bid for Yahoo, with the help of private equity firms*. This makes sense, given News Corp's previous interest in trading MySpace for a big Yahoo equity stake.
ReplyDeleteWith only a $60 billion market cap, News Corp has the same problem that other traditional media companies do: It can't afford to do the whole deal. It could certainly provide some funding, relationships, and expertise in exchange for some equity, however. So far, TechCrunch says, there are no takers.
The New York Times is reporting that anonymous sources close to the talks claim Hollywood’s writers and production companies may have overcome the major roadblocks in their contract negotiations, opening the chance of a tentative agreement between the constituencies as early as next week.
ReplyDeleteAfter two weeks of closed-door discussions, leaders of the two parties reached a breakthrough Friday, although the specific language of key provisions needs to be ironed out. “If that process goes smoothly,” writes the Times, “an agreement may be presented to the governing boards of the striking Writers Guild of America West and Writers Guild of America East by the end of next week.”
Any deal would still need to be ratified by a majority of the more than 10,000 active guild members. Spokespeople from both the West Coast writers guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers did not respond to the paper’s requests for comment.
An agreement would end a devastating strike that began in November, when writers walked off the job after failing to reach a new contract with producers after months of contested bargaining. Writers were mainly concerned about receiving adequate compensation for television programs that are streamed over the Internet after their initial broadcast. Pay for digital distribution of both shows and movies was a sticking point as well. The two sides have talked sporadically over the past four months.
Carol Gardener, executive director of Fitzgerald House, which provides transitional housing and job placement assistance to homeless veterans, recently appeared at News Corporation headquarters to deliver a petition to FOX News mainstay and The O'Reilly Factor host Bill O'Reilly.
ReplyDeleteThe petition, signed by 17,000 people, demands an apology from O'Reilly over a claim he made that there are no homeless veterans.
"The only thing sleeping under a bridge is that guy's brain," O'Reilly quipped during his January 4 broadcast, referring to part of a speech that former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards (D-NC) gave, dropping a figure of 200,000 veterans sleeping "under bridges and on grates." (The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 195,000.)
O'Reilly repeatedly joked about homeless veterans, insisting that, even if there was such a problem, there "aren't that many."
"I'd love to meet Bill O'Reilly," says Gardener, who arrived flanked by actual homeless veterans, "to sit with him and talk about the homelessness among veterans in this country."
This will never happen.
With less than a year until he leaves the White House, President Bush is proposing deep cuts in health programs while allowing virtually no increase for other domestic priorities in his final budget.
ReplyDeleteKevin Freking of the Associated Press, citing a senior administration official, reports that the budget "will virtually freeze most domestic programs."
Nonetheless, economists predict the president has saddled his successor with near-crippling debt that could threaten the US credit rating for the first time in more than 90 years.
"Despite his efforts, Mr. Bush failed to work out a deal with Congress to tackle the spiraling costs of government health and retirement programs," report the Wall Street Journal's Michael M. Phillips and John D. McKinnon. "The next president, if he or she serves two terms, could find the U.S. government so deeply in hock that it would face losing its Triple-A credit rating, something that has never happened since Moody's Investors Service began grading U.S. securities in 1917."
Bush has proposed nearly $200 billion in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare as part of his $3 trillion budget to be unveiled Monday, and he will provide miniscule increases in spending on other domestic programs.
The Bush Mantra: Destroying The Poor While Destroying The Country.
ITT Federal Services International, a defense contractor hired to maintain battle gear for U.S. troops in Iraq, repeatedly failed to do the job right.
ReplyDeleteCombat vehicles ITT declared as repaired and ready for action flunked inspections and had to be fixed again. Equipment to be sanitized for return to the United States was found caked with dirt. And ITT’s computer database for tracking the work was rife with errors.
Formal “letters of concern” were sent to the contractor. Still, the Army didn’t fire ITT. Instead, it gave the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based company more work to do. Since October 2004, ITT has been paid $638 million through the Global Maintenance and Supply Services contract.
[…]
“It has just been a mess,” McCaskill, a former state auditor, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s bad enough how much this war is costing. But it’s heartbreaking the amount of money that has just gone up in smoke.”
[…]
The office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has 52 open cases related to bribery, false billing, contract fraud, kickbacks and theft; 36 of those cases have been referred to the Justice Department for prosecution, according to the inspector general’s office.
The Army Criminal Investigation Command is busy, too. The command has 90 criminal investigations under way related to alleged contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, according to spokesman Chris Grey. Two dozen U.S. citizens have been charged or indicted so far - 19 of those are Army military and civilian employees - and more than $15 million in bribes has changed hands, Grey said.
This sounds like the Bush administration.
Celebrity-filled music videos have been used to support many social movements, from famine relief for Africa, to support for American farmers, to opposition to apartheid in South Africa.
ReplyDeleteBut rarely have celebrities and musicians banded together to create new music in the heat of a presidential campaign.
The Black Eyed Peas’ frontman, songwriter and producer known as will.i.am, along with director and filmmaker Jesse Dylan, son of another socially active musician, Bob Dylan, released a new song Friday that attempts to do just that.
The music video “Yes We Can” premiered on ABCNewsNow’s “What’s the Buzz” on Friday. It was inspired, will.i.am told ABC’s Alisha Davis, by Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and in particular by the speech he has gave after the New Hampshire primary.
“It made me reflect on the freedoms I have, going to school where I went to school, and the people that came before Obama like Martin Luther King, presidents like Abraham Lincoln that paved the way for me to be sitting here on ABCNews and making a song from Obama’s speech,” will.i.am said.
“The speech was inspiring about making change in America and I believe what it says and I hope everybody votes,” Dylan said.
Watch for it on MTV.
Weeping relatives loaded simple wood coffins atop minivans Saturday in Baghdad as the city buried dozens of victims of the deadliest bombings since the U.S. flooded the capital with extra troops last spring.
ReplyDeleteIraqi officials raised the death toll of Friday’s attacks to at least 99 _ including 62 people killed at the central al-Ghazl market and 37 others killed about 20 minutes later across town, at the New Baghdad area pigeon market. The Iraqi police, hospital and Interior Ministry officials all spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
At least 88 people were wounded in al-Ghazl, and 56 others in the second blast, they said.
Are you happy tonight Bush?
From Daily Kos:
ReplyDeleteFormer national security adviser Richard Clarke wrote a scathing op-ed in response to Bush's state of the union address. This portion of it is particularly important for our Dem Senators to keep in mind before resuming debate on the new surveillance bill Monday afternoon.
When I left the Bush administration in 2003, it was clear to me that its strategy for defeating terrorism was leaving our nation more vulnerable and our people in a perilous place. Not only did its policies misappropriate resources, weaken the moral standing of America, and threaten long-standing legal and constitutional provisions, but the president also employed misleading and reckless rhetoric to perpetuate his agenda....
Besides overstating successes in Afghanistan, painting a rosy future for Iraq, and touting unfinished domestic objectives, he again used his favorite tactic - fear - as a tool to scare Congress and the American people. On one issue in particular - FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) - the president misconstrued the truth and manipulated the facts....
So it is no surprise that in one of Bush's last acts of relevance, he once again played the fear card. While he has failed in spreading democracy, stemming global terrorism, and leaving the country better off than when he took power, he did achieve one thing: successfully perpetuating fear for political gain.
Sadly, it may be one of the only achievements of his presidency.
The Dems in the Senate did at least manage to push back on the fear card long enough to get us to where we're at now--an actual debate to happen on the Senate floor over important amendments, some of which will even get a simple up or down vote.
It's an old theme for us, unfortunately; Democrats so afraid that they'll be labelled weak in the face of terror that they'll roll over for any legislative tragedy should someone whisper "terror" in their collective ear. As disastrous as their capituation to it was in taking us to war in Iraq, their bowing to it in respects to warrantless wiretapping is just as dangerous for the long term health of the Constitution and its inherent checks and balances
Bill Clinton's Old Politics
ReplyDeleteI write this more out of sadness than anger. Bill Clinton’s ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks on Barack Obama are doing no credit to the former President, his legacy, or his wife’s campaign. Nor are they helping the Democratic party. While it may be that all is fair in love, war, and politics, it’s not fair – indeed, it’s demeaning – for a former President to say things that are patently untrue (such as Obama’s anti-war position is a “fairy tale”) or to insinuate that Obama is injecting race into the race when the former President is himself doing it. Meanwhile, the attack ads being run in South Carolina by the Clinton camp which quote Obama as saying Republicans had all the ideas under Reagan, is disingenuous. For years, Bill Clinton and many other leading Democrats have made precisely the same point – that starting in the Reagan administration, Republicans put forth a range of new ideas while the Democrats sat on their hands. Many of these ideas were wrong-headed and dangerous, such as supply-side economics. But for too long Democrats failed counter with new ideas of their own; they wrongly assumed that the old Democratic positions and visions would be enough. Clinton’s 1992 campaign – indeed, the entire “New Democratic” message of the 1990s – was premised on the importance of taking back the initiative from the Republicans and offering Americans a new set of ideas and principles. Now, sadly, we’re witnessing a smear campaign against Obama that employs some of the worst aspects of the old politics.
Robert Reich
Actor Wesley Snipes was found guilty Friday on three misdemeanor charges of failing to file tax returns -- but jurors cleared him of more serious felony charges of tax fraud and conspiracy.
ReplyDeleteA smiling Wesley Snipes leaves the courthouse after the verdicts were returned Friday.
Snipes could have faced up to five years in prison on both the conspiracy and fraud charges. He was found guilty of only half -- three out of six -- of the failure to file charges. He faces a maximum one-year sentence on each but can be expected to be sentenced to less.
"Our position has been all along that Mr. Snipes committed no fraud," said Robert Bernhoft, Snipes' attorney, after the verdict was read Friday afternoon. "He had no bad intent, and that's what the jury accepted."
Let's Talk Blog has Keith Olbermann's latest Special Comment posted.
ReplyDeleteGood listening.
Lets Talk About It
Stepford Republicans: All Caught on Tape!
ReplyDeleteby Jeff Cohen
“The Stepford Wives” tells the chilling story of once smart, independent women who get abducted and turned into tamed, mindless robots.
I have a theory about a similarly subversive process that turns grown men once capable of independent and reasoned thought into robotic extremists. Call them Stepford Republicans. The nefarious transformation always occurs before the individual gets close to becoming a Republican president or vice president.
Stepford Wives become robotically subservient only to their husbands; they pose no threat to the rest of us. But Stepford Republicans become subservient to right-wing forces of corporatism, war and prejudice. Once converted into mindless ideologues, Stepford Republicans are a threat to us all.
The prototype of a Stepford Republican is President Ronald Reagan. After his apparent abduction and alteration, he became an instrument of corporate power in the White House: union-busting, downsizing, cutting school lunch funding. This is the Reagan many remember: champion of the overdog.
But when Reagan was still a sentient being, he was actually a bleeding-heart advocate for working people. He denounced budget cuts (”millions of children have been deprived of milk once provided through the federal school lunch program”) and tax cuts that “benefit the higher income brackets alone.” He assailed corporate profiteering, and labeled a top Republican “the banner carrier for Wall Street.” He hailed unions and complained that “labor has been handcuffed by the vicious Taft-Hartley law.”
In other words, before he was robotized, Ronald Reagan could be a warm, compassionate human being - and I offer a remarkable tape to prove my theory.
Many Americans have long suspected that Vice President Dick Cheney is an android. What they may not know is that - before being Stepfordized into a neoconservative drone - he was capable of non-ideological thought that would allow him to choose a peace option over war, able to use human reason to figure out why invading Iraq would inevitably lead to “quagmire.” This short video clip offers compelling evidence.
Today, Mitt Romney is such a robotically rabid spouter of social-conservative dogma that he’s won the praise of radio rightists like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Offered as evidence of his Stepfordization is this video revealing a once human and tolerant Romney who seemed to care deeply about women’s rights and abortion rights, and resisted any connection to the policies of Reagan-Bush. It was this pre-abduction Romney who boasted that he would do more for gay equality than Ted Kennedy.
John McCain was also horrifically rewired toward servile courtship of the Religious Right. Dramatic evidence of McCain’s Stepfordization is caught on video: “Before” footage shows you a strong human speaking bravely against right-wing “agents of intolerance” like Jerry Falwell; “after” footage reveals a lifeless, docile tool of those same forces.
Perhaps you can’t accept my theory - despite the powerful taped evidence I offer - that these Republican icons are victims of Stepford-like abduction and transplant.
If so, I’d like to hear an alternative theory as to why these individuals betray their own principles or intellect - why they turn themselves into fawning servants of economic forces or ideologies or social movements they once abhorred.
The blind pursuit of power, you say? I’m simply unwilling to believe that human beings - even top Republicans - are so inherently opportunistic and corrupt.
The Evolution of Evil
ReplyDeleteBy Joel S. Hirschhorn
Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.
Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers, elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new technology they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.
Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.
The tools of real rebellion are weak. Activists and dissidents look back and see successful rebellions and revolutions and think that when today’s victims of tyranny experience enough pain and see enough political stink they too will revolt. This is wrong. They think that the Internet spreads information and inspiration to the masses, motivating them to revolt. This is wrong. They await catastrophic economic or environmental collapse to spur rebellion. This too is wrong.
Why are these beliefs wrong? Power elites have an arsenal of weapons to control and manipulate social, political and economic systems globally: corruption of public officials that make elections a sham; corporate mainstream media that turn news into propaganda; manipulation of financial markets that create fear for the public and profits for the privileged; false free trade globalization that destroys the middle class; rising economic inequality that keep the masses time-poor and financially insecure; intense marketing of pharmaceuticals that keep people passive; and addictive consumerism, entertainment and gambling that keep people distracted and pacified.
The biggest challenge for dissidents and rebels is to avoid feel-good therapeutic activism having virtually no chance of removing evil and tyranny. Idealism without practicality tactics without lofty goals, and symbolic protests pose no threat to power elites. Anger and outrage require great strategic thinking from leaders seeking revolution, not mere change. And social entrepreneurs that use business and management skills to tackle genuine social problems do nothing to achieve political reforms. To the extent they achieve results they end up removing interest in overthrowing political establishments that have allowed the problems to fester.
What is the new tool of tyranny? Technological connectivity achieved through advanced communications and computer systems, especially the rise of wireless connectivity. The global message to the masses is simple: Buy electronic products to stay plugged in. Connectivity may give pleasure, but it gives even more power to elites, rulers and plutocrats. It allows them to coordinate their efforts through invisible cabals, to closely monitor everything that ordinary people and dissidents do, and to cooperatively and clandestinely adjust social, financial and political systems to maintain stability and dominance.
In this dystopian world all systems are integrated to serve upper class elites and the corporate state, not ordinary people. When ordinary people spend their money to be more shackled to connectivity products, they become unwitting victims of largely invisible governmental and corporate oppressive forces. They are oblivious that their technological seduction exacerbates their political and economic exploitation. Though some 70 percent believe the country is on the wrong track, they fail to see the deeper causes of the trend. And if Americans were really happy and content with their consumer culture, then why are they stuffing themselves with so many antidepressants, sleeping pills and totally unhealthy foods? In truth, the vast majority of people are in denial about the rotten system they are trapped in (aka The Matrix). They are manipulated to keep hope alive through voting, despite the inability of past elections to stop the slide into economic serfdom.
Increasingly, the little-discussed phenomenon of economic apartheid ensures that elites live their lavish lives safely in physically separated ways. Concurrently, economic inequality rises, as the rich extract unusually high fractions of global wealth. When the rich get richer, the powerful get stronger. Does some economic prosperity trickles down to the poorest people? Perversely, the middle class is moved into the lower class. In this new physics of evil, wealth transfer is not from the rich to the poor, but from the middle class in wealthier countries to the poor in developing nations, where a few new billionaires join the global plutocracy.
Some data on economic inequality: The after-tax income of the top 1 percent of Americans rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005, while middle class income remained flat over the last 4 decades. The richest 0.01 percent of earners made 5.1 percent of all income in 2005, up more than 300 percent from just 1.2 percent in 1960. Bad economic times like the present just exacerbate inequality. Even as most Wall Street companies lost billions in the sub-prime mortgage debacle after they had already made billions, they gave obscene bonuses to their employees: the average topped $180,000 for 2007, tripling the $61,000 in 2002. Scholars used to predict that high levels of economic inequality like we have today would lead to rebellion. But there are now insufficient tools and paths for rebellion, because the plutocracy has eliminated them. Instead, citizens are offered elections whose outcomes can be controlled and subverted by the ruling class.
The New World Order is getting what it wants: a stable two-class system, with the lower class serving the elitist upper class. The paradox is that along with rising economic inequality and apartheid is mounting consumerism and materialism that is used to pacify, distract and control the masses. That’s where easy credit and cheap products from low-wage nations are critical. The poor can have cell phones, 24-7 Internet access and increasingly cars, while the bejeweled upper class travel in private jets and yachts, vacation on private islands, and have several gated mansions maintained by servants and guarded by private police. We have a technologically advanced form of medieval society. It is working in the US and China and most other places. Elections just mask economic tyranny and slavery.
The ruling class knows how to maintain stability. Keep the masses distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure, and dependent on government and business sectors for survival. Train people to see themselves as relatively free consumers. Maintain the myth that ordinary people can become wealthy and join the ruling class, which theoretically is not impossible, but of no statistical significance for the masses.
There are no easy paths to restore power to the people. But here are three strategies worth considering. First, the real power of the masses is as consumers, not as voters, workers, activists, or Internet users. Weakened unions, globalization, technology, and illegal immigration have sapped the power of workers. National economies, especially the US, depend on consumers. Suspensions in discretionary consumer spending used as a political weapon could force reforms. But curbing personal spending and saving money has become a rare form of civil disobedience. Consumers buy stuff when they want it, not when they can afford it. Rulers have replaced chains with debt and no political leader in a very long time has championed economic rebellion.
Second, because they are more a tool of tyranny than rebellion, the masses should stop giving credibility and legitimacy to faux democracies by boycotting elections. Plutocrats cleverly equate patriotism and good citizenship with voting while at the same time ensuring that no genuine change agents can succeed even if elected. All election results can be subverted by the forces of corruption. Those promising change, like Barack Obama, do not pose a lethal threat to forces of evil and corruption. Sadly, refusing to vote in corrupt political systems is another worthy but unpopular form of civil disobedience. The compulsion to vote is a political narcotic that sustains democratic tyranny.
Third, people must seek forms of direct democracy that give them political power. National ballot measures and initiatives are needed to make laws, impose spending mandates and recall elected officials. A most important tool is constitutional conventions outside the control of status quo preservationists to obtain systemic reforms that governments will never provide, as explained for the US at www.foavc.org. No greater example of ruling class power exists than the absence of massive public demands for using what the Founders gave Americans in Article V: the convention option to circumvent and fix the federal government that – amazingly – has never been used, and that no presidential candidate has supported, including constitutional champion Ron Raul.
[Joel S. Hirschhorn can be reached through www.delusionaldemocracy.com; he is a co-founder of Friends of the Article V Convention at www.foavc.org.]
Stagflation is Here
ReplyDeleteby Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay
War—after all, what is it that the people get? Why—widows, taxes, wooden legs and debt.
Samuel B. Pettengill
"Armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
James Madison, 4th U.S. President (April 20, 1795)
"Let me issue and control a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws".
Nathan Rothschild, 1791
Last summer, I observed that there was a "solvency crisis" underneath the ongoing subprime mortgage liquidity squeeze. Central banks can alleviate a "liquidity crisis", but they cannot solve a solvency crisis.
Last year also, before the events, I warned that the U.S. was heading toward stagflation.
This was due to three fundamental factors.
First, the structural fiscal imbalances of the federal budget in a period of prosperity, as a result of the Bush-Cheney administration's continuous deficit spending linked to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and to its large tax cuts;
Second, the over-indebtedness of the overall U.S. economy coupled with an overall saving rate close to zero (in 1981, it was 12 percent), and, as a consequence, the rapidly increasing foreign debt of the U.S.; and,
Third, the required decline in the U.S. dollar to reverse and correct the deteriorating American balance of payments. The second factor was a harbinger of less consumer spending in the coming months while the third factor would stoke the fire of overall inflation. And with already high budget deficits, there would be less leeway for an aggressive fiscal policy to sustain economic activity. The table was thus set for a bout of stagflation, i.e. slow growth and rising inflation.
Now, stagflation is here. —Economic growth is slowing down, M3 money supply numbers, as a measure of overall liquidity in the economy, are in the double digits range, the yield curve has inverted and become negative (short term rates higher than longer term rates) and the U.S. dollar has become one the weakest currencies in the world. All this as American twin deficits (balance of trade and federal government budget deficits) are at record levels. —As I pointed out last year, " A lower currency translates into more imported inflation and makes it difficult to maintain low interest rates," even if, in due time, it will improve the trade balance. This means that, for all practical purposes, monetary policy is also severely constrained in what it can now accomplish. For all of 2007, inflation hit 4.1 percent, which is two-thirds more than in 2006 when inflation registered at 2.5 percent. Moreover, the surge in wholesale prices announces even higher inflation in the months ahead.
With inflation being on the rise and real interest rates already in negative territory, aggressive monetary stimulus would likely be counterproductive, because too low interest rates would encourage capital outflows, pushing the dollar further down, and translating into more imported inflation. On top of that, one has to remember that monetary policy shifts take at least nine to twelve months before impacting the real economy. One has also to keep in mind that the U.S. operates, more and more, in an international environment, and is less and less capable of influencing the domestic economy by manipulating one variable only, such as the interest rate.
Of course, the Fed could have played a better preventive regulatory role if it had intervened in 2003-04 to reign in the unsound banking lending practices that have led to the subprime debacle. But the milk is out of the bottle now, and nothing can erase the damage done to the housing construction sector and other parts of the economy because of this lack of oversight.
After seven years of continuous indulging, of borrowing and debt building, the U.S. federal government is also in a fiscal bind and will find it difficult to effectively counteract the slowdown in the economy. Indeed, over the last seven years, the Bush-Cheney administration has run fiscal deficits on the average of $461.29 billion each year, for a grand total of $3,229 billion of cumulative of on-budget deficits.
This makes it harder to embark upon a new round of deficit spending to stimulate the economy. For one, fiscal policy shifts have even a longer time horizon before impacting the real economy. Secondly, the coming slowdown and recession will worsen an already high federal government deficit, as government receipts decline with the rise in unemployment and the drop in income growth. On the spending side, the Iraq war, in particular, is a black hole that siphons off more than $100 billion each year, with no end in sight. Oil prices are also very high, partly because of high world demand, partly because of geopolitical instability and partly because of the lowered dollar.
After seven years of foreign policy madness and of empire building on a mountain of debt, and of public indulging and private gouging, the financial crisis and credit crunch, the plummeting dollar, the high price for oil will all contribute to the 2008 economic slowdown, which is likely to turn into a recession, during the first half of the year, if it is not already into one since last December. The downturn in the world stock markets during this month is another clear indication that something is wrong, not only with the U.S. economy, but also with the world economy.
All that would seem to be very bad news for George W. Bush's Republicans, just as it was bad news for the Democratic Carter administration in the late '70s. Indeed, over the last century, the U.S. economy has been in a recession four times in the early part of a presidential election year, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. In each of those years — 1920, 1932, 1960 and 1980 — the party of the incumbent president lost the election.
Hi Lydia and Everyone!
ReplyDeleteI really wanted Edwards to be President but I understand that timing is everything and it was time for him to step aside.
I agree, he would be a dedicated AG and would restore Justice! He is truly a man for the people. :)
Hi Larry!
ReplyDeleteThis is Bush and Cheney's war and recession.
It's past time for CHANGE in America. ;)
I Suzie, I was just on your blog for your latest post.
ReplyDeleteIt's coming: The Bush Depression.
New World Order: Unimaginable Intentional Human Suffering
ReplyDeleteby Peter Chamberlin
Perhaps one day we shall know the truth about being, and being alive on planet earth, whether life on every living planet is as messed-up as it is here. Earth's problems must be unique, as they are of man's own creation, man-made disasters caused by ambitious men who are allowed to rise to the top, where they dominate us for self-gain. We allow our leaders to take the positions of power that they desire, instead of actually choosing who shall lead us. Humans tend to submit to those who claim authority, since it is easier to believe in symbols of power, than it is to personally submit to the tedium of the reasoning process. As a people, we tend to follow the natural order of things along the path of least resistance. By taking the easy way out, we give our blessing to the law of the jungle.
It is natural for societies to become dominated by powerful elites, who gain control of the inner workings of government and commerce, in order to bend them both to their will. "Meritocracy" and other forms of "social Darwinism," describe the belief that "success" by this definition justifies the survival of the fittest capitalism (globalism) that has decimated the world. The brutal belief system widely promoted as "neoconservatism" is behind the fascist agenda that emerged from the bowels of corporate-owned "think tanks." These elitist thinkers believe that it is necessary for our government to "cull" the "useless eaters" from the face of the earth, through forced population reduction and perpetual war. They are the true radicals, possessed by "extremist belief systems." Their plans for us are the end program of a centuries-old class war between the elitist self-proclaimed neo-aristocrats, who would be masters of mankind and the rest of the human race. The neocons are nothing new, just the latest, most-concentrated form of this egotistical brand of pure evil.
If the elitist "one-worlders" were correct about being the "natural leaders" of the world, dedicated to saving the most noble of mankind from the excesses of the dirty masses, then their cold-blooded plans might be justified by the results, by anyone who survived them. The plan is to kill-off a significant portion of the earth's "dead weight," keep another segment as a labor force and extend their own lives through genetic and eugenic research. They are not being all that secretive about this research, only about where it all is meant to lead us. If the idea of rich men carrying-out a plot to kill-off billions of poor people isn't enough to motivate the masses into torch-carrying mobs, I can't imagine what would be enough.
People with any conscience at all can see the obvious evil inherent in the selective use of genocide as an element of state policy, for the purpose of eliminating entire populations that are in our way, and thereby terrorizing others into submission with our killing power and basic lack of morality. It is unconscionable that a "civilized" nation would seek to force its will upon other nations by terrorizing them into submission under fear of certain death. This is an abomination upon the American spirit, equal to the abomination in which this spirit was founded, when we wiped-out the first Americans, in claiming our parasitic "manifest destiny."
The fact that genocide is an acceptable form of warfare is testimony about the many evils which we have learned to accept. The collective conscience of the human race and the mind of God demand that we act to make genocide unacceptable, once again. Ideas cannot fight against raw power, unless they become a shared idea, driving a political momentum. We have to make our countrymen see the reality beyond the illusions of the nightly dream-weavers and the patriotic drum-beaters.
The people of the United States must be made to understand that, more than ever, genocide is government policy, before they will rise-up in righteous indignation to it. It is a clear-cut case of "good – vs. – evil," with the evil being the world's number one source of state terrorism, the government of the United States of America. The American people can only save themselves if they are made aware of the fact that they are under attack by those who claim to be their trusted leaders. Likewise, all the people of the earth are under attack by their own governments, who serve as American representatives, to help conquer the earth and corrupt all life. The people of every nation must rise-up and become their own governments, the only truly democratic government.
In opposition to the leadership of the elite, which stands leeringly over the dying American corpse, there is another leadership rising-up, the researchers and writers who are exposing and resisting the corrupted power structure. We are those who would dig beneath the official lies to expose the bloody roots of corruption that support all that is hostile to human life. We are the voluntary citizens' press corps, dedicated to taking up the task of reporting on government deceptions, a job that the mainstream media has forsaken. One day, when freedom prevails, the alternative media will replace the sell-outs and the official lie-passers of the nightly news. But, until that blessed day, researchers like Prof. Michel Chossudovsky will keep turning-up the soil for us, exposing the inner workings of our criminal government. His important research on the roots of the Islamic Militant Network and its CIA origins has blown the lid off the most important story of the Twenty-first Century. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7718
The names and keywords that other researchers have associated with the genocidal plans of the elite are too numerous to list or remember here, yet to do so would weave a sordid tale of interconnections and plots that clearly intersect in complicated patterns. By listing the elements of the octopus, we lay-out the proof of an elitist conspiracy for the few who care enough to open their eyes. But, in order to reach the distracted and pre-occupied majority, we must stick to single key issues like the "Global 2000" report, to tell the genocidal plans of our government, while secret war plans like "Operation North Woods," demonstrate just how far they are willing to go to start wars, the key to the war on terror.
The case proving government complicity in the 9/11 attacks which initiated the war on terrorism is becoming stronger every day. In addition to all the forensic evidence from the attacks and the unbelievable string of "coincidences" that made the attacks possible, we now know that Islamist terrorists, "associated with al Qaida" have been key elements of US foreign policy up until, and including, the time of the Trade Center attack. We have begun to understand the depth of US/CIA involvement in the destabilizing of a dozen or more countries with these highly-trained Islamic "insurgencies." This criminal foreign policy of creating radical Islamic militias for the purpose of starting wars in nations now at peace creates ever-expanding bands of Islamic uprisings throughout the Middle East and southeast Asia, justifying genocidal counter-attacks as "fighting terrorism."
The US is following the time-tested strategy developed by the Israelis (who first implemented it as a double-edged sword for waging war to thin-out the Muslims, while increasing the number of Islamists gradually) to justify greater and greater waves of ethnic repression. For, if you plan to one day force an entire population out of their ancient homeland, in order to colonize it, you will first need to rationalize a massive wave of state terrorism that will be needed for the task. For this, you will need an army of credibly bloodthirsty Islamists, to justify the monstrous offensives into civilian populations. This is why Israel created Hamas and the US and Israel created al Qaida.
Our government and many of our people have whole-heartedly embraced Israel's implementation of ethnic cleansing policies in Gaza and Lebanon, seeing them as dress rehearsals for our own genocidal plans against other innocent Muslims around the world.
The barbaric acts committed by Israel against the captive Gaza population are not the acts of moral people. Every act of repression, every secret move to limit the rights of Arabs, is intended to provoke reactions from the mostly defenseless people, in order to justify counter-reactions from the world's fifth most powerful military force. For Israel to "save face" in its international PR campaign, images of terrorists must be created to defend against. If Palestinians do not attempt to defend themselves with primitive weapons, then the Zionist oppressors will be hard-pressed to justify targeted assassinations and other brutal tactics meant to drive them from their homes. Palestinians, like Americans and all other targeted populations must follow the scripts that have been written for them and rise-up in defiant acts of self-defense, so that all the complainers can be bombed into bloody submission. The only difference between modern American/Israeli fascism and classic Nazism is the modern capability to control all information and suppress the truth.
The scale of the intentional suffering being inflicted by supposedly moral human beings, who consider themselves superior to their victims, is unimaginable. What is even more unimaginable is the international spectacle of other supposedly moral nations fawning over the killers, each nation trying harder than the next to suck-up to those who are starving helpless children, depriving them of medicine, and mowing them down with cannon and machine gun fire, in order to wipe them from their land and erase them from the "pages of time." The international horror shows of "diplomacy" and "humanitarianism" are shams, meant to seduce the masses into reveling in the bloodlust that is scheduled to head in their direction. "Negotiations" with pseudo-humanitarians like Bush, Olmert and Cheney can be nothing more than discussing terms of surrender. One day soon, the entire earth will rise-up against this axis of evil. Our actions today will determine if the people of America stand with the rest of the world against our own government, or if we will continue in our surrender to the beasts of the modern jungle, who intend to devour everything we hold dear.
The earth is standing at the edge of a dark precipice; on the other side is the greatest epic in mankind's history, waiting to be written, waiting for those of us who dare to take up the pen and to fight the darkness of the lies. An army of freedom-writers, who are as dedicated to defending life as the enemies of life are dedicated to ending it, can bring forth a new sustaining vision of life. We must first choose to place our own freedom in jeopardy, by stepping forward to stop those who would take us into the void in a vain gamble to crush most of the earth's life for the sake of greater "profit."
It is time for all of God's children to take a stand together. It is time to end the American nightmare (formerly known as the American dream).
Bush's Dream is Coming True: The Upcoming New World Order.
Larry said...
ReplyDeleteI Suzie, I was just on your blog for your latest post.
It's coming: The Bush Depression.
_____________
Larry, I saw your comment and got my butt right over here! hehe
Yes, Bush and Cheney's Depression is upon us now...
People are going broke faster than they did in 1929. (I read that somewhere but now don't recall where, however, it was a credible news source.)
McCain drank the Kool-Aid and kissed El Diablo... he is truly a Neocon and wants more bloody war! Lieberman too..
ReplyDeleteWe must take our country back from the Neocons!
Larry:
ReplyDeleteCheck your email. ;)
Watch McCain waddle around the stage. He is so old and senile he can barely waddle.
ReplyDeleteHey Larry, Lydia and Christopher and Suzy-
ReplyDeleteBarack is on cspan at 10 Pm ( or around there)
it is at Some Football Stadium in Missouri- it should also be live feed on his blog too-
Anyways - cpsan had a couple of different camera angles- Amazing HUGE Crowds- Biggest I have ever ever seen ( and I collect Aerial Photos....so we are talking HUGE)....
Try to catch it...He did great on MTV today....
But this speech tonight should be something....
thanks....
Thanks Enigma I'll look for it. I missed the one on MTV.
ReplyDeleteHey there ...
ReplyDeleteBarack event is on- livefeed on his blog or cspan....
Tremendous crowds....he is using John Edwards U2 music....hmm. that is interesting...St.Louis Rams Stadium.....Big Echo.....more than 50,000 there...at 10:30 on a Saturday Night....
History.....
I found him on C-Span Enigma.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Thanks E4E! Is he still on? I'm going to look on c-span.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a link for it on C-span?
ReplyDeleteSuzie- if you can't find it on Cspan go to his website and it is supposed to be streaming LIVE...
ReplyDeleteSuzie - It is cspan I, and there should be LIve Feed site online- on their blog....
ReplyDeleteSorry- the Obama blog does not have it- sorry-usually they do...
Sorry Suzie-
ReplyDeleteI just went to the cspan site-and it is not streaming- you are right- I am going to go email the Obama people- I think they will re-air this....
Also on my Blog there is Campaign Network on the Blogroll- that might have more info....I will look there too..
Okay FOUND IT- and it is still on CAMPAIGN NETWORK ON MY BLOG- CLICK IT THERE IT IS LIVE STREAMING CSPAN....
ReplyDelete(this is cspan 's new site)
10:57 still on ;-)
Whats going on tonight, i've been busy cooking for a Superbowl Party i'm hosting and havent followed the News much since Thursday
ReplyDeleteE4E.. I thought it was just me! LOL
ReplyDeleteThanks and I am going to add that link on my blog! :)
Hey Mike!
ReplyDeleteWe're watching Obama at his rally in St. Louis
:)
I think it's over now though.
Hey Mike- His speech just ended , but it was great..it is amazing...I realized tonight after watching Obama, how he connects and also how is Somebody that people want to touch and be with...and they listen so intently....After Years of Biubble Boy - this is so amazing to watch..
ReplyDeleteI am listening to Cspan Call In now and Repugs are Calling in and saying they are going to Vote for Obama because they can see that he can Unite this Country...wow...many calls in a row....
Glad you found it Suz...sorry about the confusion...
Okay...so I was reading the articles you pulled Larry- and I was actually reading them and listening to the Repug Debates in the background...and it was so odd....NOThing that I was reading was matching what was posted by you- not the security issues, not the COST of war, the Effects on the rest of the world- NONE of it- and McCain and Mitt are having a Delusional Contest....( Romney does not realy think we are in Financial trouble and McCain thinks he is suposed to be Comforting us....while talking about a 100 year war).Anyways- thanks for the articles- really chilling the New World Order one esp....
ReplyDeleteAnd BTW I need to correct my error- it is NOT 50,000 at the StLoius Rally ( that was what 6-6 thought he heard- ooooops) It was actually over 20,000 ( still looked like more...find out tomorrow)...
My apologies for being too "fired up" ...sorry..
SUNDAY TALK
ReplyDeleteMTP: James Carville (D), Mary Matalin (R), Mike Murphy (R), Bob Shrum (D) discuss Super Tuesday
FTN: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL); Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
This Week: Mitt Romney (R-MA); Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY); roundtable of Dee Dee Myers, Robert Reich, Torie Clarke and George Will
FNS: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Late Edition: Mike Huckabee (R-AR); Mitt Romney (R-MA); Ralph Nader; Bill Bennett on the GOP primary race; Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA); Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ); Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ)
Did ANYONE watch the repug debates it was bizarre watching all the little repuggies invoke Reagan's name hundreds of times in one little twilight zone like spat Willard the mighty Hunter and John the foot soldier or should i say bootlicker McCain must have mentioned Ronald Eagan's name 30 times within the span of 120 seconds............its ludicris how low the bar is set for the repugs that they would worship and elevate to cultlike status an average President as if he were the Messiah and could walk on water or something.
ReplyDeleteBTW anyone notice HOW MANY times McCaine keeps saying he was a footsoldier in the Reagan Revolution and that we are in an epic struggle against radical islamofascism and extremism............its like he's senile or something and forgot he said the same thing 5 minutes again or 30 other times during the debate........he's a damn joke.
Mike:
ReplyDeletethank you for saying that....It really has been astounding...I thougt it was just me- it is like he is a stuck record...he can not say or do anything else- there are Trigger words that he has to bring up or he gets stuck...
He is scary...that Islamfascismextremeists stuff is really where he gets all revved and how we need to fiight "them" everywhere....( it is like what ????) But I have also noted that some of the people watching him are subdued- quiet....kind of like ???WTH???
On cspan call ins all week Repugs have been calling and say that they are voting for Obama- they don't want McCain or Hill ( funny they think she is Repug)....
Enigma, Americans are sick and tired about hearing about war and islamofascism bs from war mongering fools who crave power and will say and do anything to get it..........thats not what Americans want to hear with the exceptions of the 20% in the GOP who still support the Neo Con fascists who hate freedom and hijacked our country with warmongering and fear tactics.
ReplyDeleteMike:
ReplyDeleteI know you are right...but it still amazes me...really.....and McCain is campaigning with Liebermann ( WHY did Gore ever pick him??) and Lindsay Graham...and it is funny- they stand behind him their heads bobbing..
I am watching Obama again ..on cspan..and it is refreshing to NOT hear any Warmongering....and Fearmongering....explaining about WHAT Hope really is..
4:52 PM EST
ReplyDeletecpsan:
LA LIVE OBAMA EVENT....( finally cspan has started carrying OBAMA events live on cspan...)
Caroline Kennedy , Michelle Obama, and Oprah.....at University of LA....PACKED...thousands....standing room only, when they cheer the Cameras Shake .....
Very Very Noisy.... Si Se Puede......Yes We Can....
ON almost every step of his march towards the Republican nomination, John McCain has relied on the support of his glamorous second wife Cindy. Yet she has not always been a political asset. A Republican victory in November would bring to the White House a formidable but flawed first lady.
ReplyDeleteMcCain’s marriage has long attracted attention both for the 18-year age gap between husband and wife and for their adopted Asian daughter, who became the focus of one of the most vicious dirty tricks of the 2000 presidential campaign.
The couple have also overcome daunting health problems that included McCain’s bouts with skin cancer, a stroke suffered by Cindy in 2004, and her admission a decade earlier that she had become so addicted to painkillers that she was stealing them from a medical charity she ran.
Yet somehow the McCains have emerged as a potent and durable political partnership. Cindy McCain was at her husband’s side last week as he celebrated the Florida primary victory that has put him at the front of the Republican field.
A former Arizona rodeo beauty queen and daughter of a millionaire Phoenix businessman, Cindy McCain was 25 when she met her future husband at a cocktail party in Hawaii. John McCain was a 43-year-old naval liaison officer travelling with a congressional delegation, his sights already set on a political career.
He was also still married to his first wife Carol, although the couple had recently separated. Carol later attributed the breakdown of the marriage to “John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again”. McCain fell like a brick for Cindy, who was the heir to a brewery distribution business worth millions. For several years afterwards the McCains endured Washington gossip that he had dumped his first wife - who had been crippled in a car accident - in favour of a trophy bride to enhance his political ambitions.
It was in the late 1980s, after a series of miscarriages and giving birth to three children, that Cindy developed spinal problems and was prescribed painkillers after surgery. Her husband and family had no idea she was secretly taking pills stolen from a charity she had created called the American Voluntary Medical Team, which sent mobile surgical units to war zones. When federal agents began to investigate gaps in the charity’s records, Cindy telephoned her husband, a senator in Washington, and confessed.
She admitted at the time that the 1994 episode had “nearly destroyed both of us”. But she underwent treatment and attended meetings of Narcotics Anonymous as part of a deal with prosecutors who dropped charges.
A few years earlier she had visited Bangladesh with a different charity and decided on the spur of the moment to help a little girl with a cleft palate whom she met in Mother Teresa’s orphanage.
The McCains eventually adopted the girl, named her Bridget and raised her as their daughter. She is now 16, but during McCain’s ugly presidential primary fight against George W Bush in 2000, voters in South Carolina began receiving telephone calls suggesting the senator had fathered an illegitimate black child.
The authors of the smear have never been identified, but Bush was the beneficiary and went on to win the South Carolina primary and the Republican nomination. The McCains have never publicly blamed Bush and their relations have been outwardly cordial. But Cindy recently admitted that she keeps a “grudge list”.
Cindy McCain, now 53, claims she has no interest in policy making - “I am not the legislator in this family. He is” - and that she intends to keep busy running her charities and her family’s company. As first lady, it is clear that she would play a key role. Acknowledging that McCain had made many enemies in Republican ranks, she added: “The only person my husband can trust is me.”
Oh no a cutthroat drunken thief like Pickles Bush.
Larry:
ReplyDeleteWhat a sad story...I had no idea...I have noticed that she looks very unhappy at some of the events- almost detached- it is funny she has reminded me of Pat Nixon...or Betty Ford...dimunititive....quiet...but again....not fully engaged...Dressed to be there...but just not there....and after reading your info- I think that she may have alot of reasons to be detached..so sad.
I really want a First Lady that wants to be there...that wants to be part of History...and a part of Change...( after Bush- they should all want to be a part of Change..)
I feel bad that the Political Machine really chewed up her life....and caused Harm to her family life...I also think that John , after all that they went through...he did not take her of the family into account....what an awful thing....
sigh...we Need Empathy in this country again....it is a Defecit...a void...It is important to have people at the Helm that have Empathy, and that they are not bitter from painful past experiences...Leadership is about people that have Empathy and Wisdom....and at this point would we even recognize it if we were to see it ?
Dark times can limit Vision...or bring new Vision...
Maria Kennedy Shriver, wife of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, showed up unexpectedly at a UCLA campaign rally this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteIn sharp contrast to her husband, a Republican and supporter of Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Shriver took the opportunity to show her support for Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) for the presidency in this year's national election.
"Sometimes, when you're following your own truth and voice, it's scary," Shriver says in her speech. "But that's the only thing you can do, if you're living your own life, and not someone else's life, is follow your own truth."
Poor Shillery. Poor Deranged McCain.
Strange bedfellows," indeed.
ReplyDeleteOn Sunday's edition of ABC's This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) how she felt about possibly having the support of controversial conservative pundit Ann Coulter.
A few days ago, as RAW STORY reported, Coulter told Fox's Sean Hannity that if Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is the Republican nominee, she's supporting Hillary Clinton.
"If he's our candidate, then Hillary's going to be our girl," Coulter asserted. "Because she's more conservative than he is. I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism. ... I absolutely believe that. ... I will campaign for her if it's McCain."
Conservative bloggers in general reacted to Coulter's remarks by calling her an "idiot" or a "lunatic." However, one commenter at a conservative blog may have been more perceptive in offering the suggestion that "it is possible that Coulter said this to cause trouble for Hillary."
After Stephanopoulos mentioned the "endorsement" Sunday morning, a broad smile struck Clinton's face, accompanied by a fit of cough-inducing laughter.
"Well, this will be an interesting election all the way through, George," Clinton chuckled, "you never know, strange bedfellows and all of that."
Clinton then turned serious, saying that she believed it would be a "tremendous contest between Senator McCain and myself," and suggested that she would be best suited to challenge him in November, especially on the issue of security.
Clinton added, "At some point, I'm happy to have any voters. Although, this one took me somewhat by surprise."
Another reason to NOT VOTE FOR SHILLERY.
U.S. Concern Over Economy Is Highest in Years
ReplyDeleteBy Michael Abramowitz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Public views of the national economy are now more negative than at any point in nearly 15 years, and few people believe that the kind of stimulus plan being devised by President Bush and Congress is enough to stave off or soften a recession, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
More than eight in 10 Americans describe the economy as "not so good" or "poor," and nearly six in 10 believe the United States is already in a recession. While voters appear more sanguine about their own circumstances, three in 10 are now pessimistic about their financial prospects over the coming year, double the percentage holding a dour outlook in December 2006.
The new poll, conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 1, shows how thoroughly the souring economy has overtaken the war in Iraq as the electorate's principal concern. Thirty-nine percent of all Americans now cite the economy and jobs as the No. 1 issue in the presidential campaign, up 10 percentage points in the past three weeks; more than twice as many people now highlight the economy as call Iraq the top issue. No other concern reaches double digits.
These assessments follow months of steadily worsening news about the economy that could bring the country full circle to the downturn that took hold at the beginning of the Bush administration in 2001. A financial crisis that began in the U.S. markets over home mortgage defaults has steadily spread since last fall, and on Wednesday, the first day of the Post-ABC poll, the government reported that the nation had experienced its weakest period of economic growth since 2002.
On Friday, the Labor Department said the economy lost jobs in January, the first time in 53 months that had happened, putting new pressure on Bush and Congress to take action to stimulate the economy. The Federal Reserve Board has slashed key interest rates in an effort to keep the economy from sliding into a long, debilitating recession, which is defined as at least two consecutive quarters of decline in gross domestic product.
Only 19 percent of Americans now rate the nation's economy positively, the fewest to say so since June 1993, when the Clinton administration was grappling with a struggling economy. On the eve of the last midterm elections, 55 percent assessed the state of the national economy as "excellent" or "good." Now, about nine in 10 Democrats and independents give the economy a negative review; nearly two-thirds of Republicans agree.
The deteriorating economy has dramatically shifted the focus of policymakers in Washington and candidates on the campaign trail. Bush, whose language on the economy has become progressively more sober over the past several months, is pressing the Senate to finish work on a stimulus plan he drew up with House leaders.
The legislation, approved by the House last week, would pump $146 billion into the economy, much of it through checks from the government to individuals and families, and tax incentives for businesses to invest in plants and equipment. The Senate is developing a rival plan offering $157 billion in stimulus measures.
But the Post-ABC poll suggests little confidence that such plans will have the intended effect. Only about three in 10 think government checks of several hundred dollars to most workers and new corporate incentives will be enough to avoid or mitigate a recession; two-thirds doubt it will work.
About three-quarters of Democrats and independents are skeptical that such a stimulus package would soften the slowdown. Republicans divide evenly -- 47 percent think it would, 47 percent think it would not.
Asked what they would do with the extra money, 27 percent said they would put it in the bank, 26 percent would pay bills, 20 percent would spend it and 5 percent would pay down debt. One respondent offered, "I'd go buy a hamburger."
Another step toward the coming Bush Depression.
Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama opened narrow leads on Hillary Clinton in California and Missouri one day before crucial "Super Tuesday" nominating contests in 24 states, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Monday.
ReplyDeleteObama and Clinton were deadlocked in New Jersey, and Obama enjoyed a double-digit advantage over Clinton in Georgia in two other Democratic contests on the biggest single day of voting ever in a U.S. presidential nominating campaign.
Obama, an Illinois senator, and Clinton, a New York senator, have waged a bitter duel for the Democratic presidential nomination, competing for votes from coast to coast after splitting the first four significant contests.
"The momentum is with Obama," said pollster John Zogby. "If this trend continues it could be a very big night for him."
New! Ultimate 'North American Union'
ReplyDeleteJerome Corsi reveals stunning 'bureaucratic coup d'etat' now in progress
It has been one of the most influential books of the last year Рand now, "The Late Great USA," Jerome Corsi's riveting expos̩ of the ongoing and wide-ranging efforts at merging the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
Corsi, a Harvard Ph.D. and co-author of the No. 1 New York Times best seller "Unfit for Command," is the nation's top reporter on the "North American Union." Despite official scoffing at Corsi's reports of the well-documented merger efforts, "The Late Great USA" became a New York Times best seller. Moreover, Corsi's intrepid reporting has propelled the North American merger into the national presidential debate, and led to more than a dozen state legislatures passing resolutions opposing it.
Corsi traces the merger story back to 2005, when, during a meeting in Waco, Texas, the leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada announced the establishment of the innocuous-sounding "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," an announcement that was never submitted to Congress.
Why?
Corsi, a staff reporter for WND, offers convincing evidence the Security and Prosperity Partnership is laying the groundwork for the unthinkable – a merger of the U.S., Mexico and Canada into a European Union-type "North American Union," complete with a shared judiciary, open borders and a new currency designed to replace the dollar – the amero.
In The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada," Corsi showed how a bureaucratically entrenched army of "world citizens" is working tirelessly toward this EU-like merger. In the brave new world they envision, the U.S. will no longer be a sovereign nation, but a market designed for maximum economic exploitation by multinational corporations and foreign governments, regardless what American citizens want.
How globalist business leaders and taxpayer-funded academics are deliberately side-stepping the Constitution – and Congress – in order to submerge the U.S. into a regional government.
How the state of Texas is seizing millions of acres of privately owned land so that foreign investors can cash in on a NAFTA “superhighway” from Mexico to the Canadian border.
How China, through its proxies in Mexico, plans to bring the world’s sole superpower to its knees economically – without firing a shot.
The North American Union would not just be the end of America as we know it, explains Corsi, but the beginning of an EU-like nightmare – a bureaucratic coup d'etat foisted upon millions of American citizens without their knowledge or consent.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership is not just unconstitutional, says the best-selling author, but an act of treason committed at the highest levels, one that must be stopped before the U.S.A., as a free and sovereign nation fades into history.
As of Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008, at least 3,943 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,209 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
ReplyDeleteAre you pleased with those number Bush?
Hillary Clinton Again Lies about Iraq
ReplyDeleteby Stephen Zunes
In Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton lied again about Iraq.
At the forum in Los Angeles, Hillary Clinton declared, “We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors.”
That statement was totally false. The bombing campaign had been planned for months and the inspectors were not thrown out. They were ordered out by President Bill Clinton in anticipation of the four-day U.S.-led bombing campaign.
The chronology, which is on the public record, is as follows:
In early 1998, the Clinton Administration began to raise concerns about Iraq’s refusal to allow inspectors of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) to visit so-called “presidential sites,” a liberally-defined series of buildings and grounds across the country that Iraq claimed were used by government officials. Even though subsequent evidence has revealed that the Iraqis had nothing to hide, since all proscribed weapons and weapons material had long since been eliminated, Saddam Hussein held firm. Given that a number of prominent American political leaders from both parties had called openly for assassinating him, however, the Iraqi leader’s reluctance to allow Americans into presidential palaces may have been a result of concerns that such access would make him and other top officials personally vulnerable. Furthermore, the Iraqis had complained that, despite a stated policy of avoiding staffing UNSCOM with experts from “intelligence providing states,” there was a disproportionate number of Americans involved in the inspections, who would deliberately prolong the process and could potentially provide information to the U.S. military. The Iraqi dictator also reportedly had an obsessive compulsive disorder which led him to order that his palaces be kept meticulously clean and made him particularly reluctant to allow large groups of foreigners to move about his homes.
The Clinton administration’s insistence upon raising this issue at that time was rather suspect: Such Iraqi restrictions on these “presidential sites” had existed since the beginning of the sanctions regime nearly seven years earlier without any concerns publically expressed by United Nations officials. Yet suddenly, in January 1998, the Clinton administration decided that it had become an intolerable violation of UN Security Council resolution 687, which called upon Iraq to verify its disarmament, and warned Iraq that the United States - despite the lack of Security Council approval as required - would engage in a sustained bombing campaign against their country if the Iraqis did not allow these inspections of presidential palaces to go ahead. By February, a large-scale U.S. military assault seemed likely. However, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was able to broker a deal late that month that opened the presidential palaces to UN inspectors, but with an additional diplomatic presence in recognition of the sites’ special status.
The disappointment by Clinton administration officials that the bombing campaign would not be able to go ahead as planned was palpable. Clinton did not give up on its search for an excuse to attack Iraq, however.
At the end of October, Iraq imposed new restrictions on UNSCOM as a result of revelations that the United States was indeed illegally using UNSCOM as a vehicle for spying on the Iraqi government. On November 10, in response to pressure from President Clinton, UNSCOM chairman Richard Butler announced his decision to pull UNSCOM out of Iraq without the required authorization from the Security Council. Iraq then reversed itself and agreed to allow the inspectors to resume their activities. The United States, however, was eager to launch military action, particularly by mid-December in order to take advantage of overlapping American military units on rotation in the Persian Gulf, which made it a particularly auspicious time for major air strikes.
According to former chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Clinton’s National Security Advisor Sandy Berger - now a major advisor for Senator Clinton - met with Butler on November 30, when the UNSCOM director was instructed to provoke Iraq into breaking its agreement to fully cooperate with UNSCOM. Without consulting the UN Security Council as required, Butler announced to the Iraqis that he was nullifying previously agreed-upon modalities dealing with sensitive sites that limited the number of UNSCOM inspectors. He chose the Baath Party headquarters in Baghdad as the site to demand unfettered access, a very unlikely place to store weapons of mass destruction but one very likely to provoke a negative reaction. The Iraqis refused to allow the large group into their party headquarters, but did allow them unrestricted access to a series of sensitive military installations.
At that point, Butler and the Clinton Administration unilaterally ordered UN inspectors out of Iraq in order to remove them from the risk of being harmed by the massive U.S. air and missile strikes that were forthcoming. Back in New York, American officials then helped Butler draft a report blaming Iraq exclusively for the impasse in a late night session at the U.S. Mission across from the United Nations headquarters. As the UN Security Council was meeting in an emergency special session on how to implement a unified response to Iraq’s non-cooperation, the United States - with support from Great Britain - launched an unauthorized four-day series of sustained air strikes against Iraq in what became known as Operation Desert Fox. In response, Iraq forbade UNSCOM from returning.
Surely Senator Clinton knew all this, since she has emphasized as evidence of her supposed experience in foreign affairs her close consultation with her husband and his national security advisors during these crises. Her claims during the debate, then, that the bombing took place because Saddam Hussein “threw out inspectors” is a boldface lie to rationalize for a four-day bombing campaign that killed hundreds of people, many of whom were innocent civilians, and which gave Saddam Hussein an excuse to refuse to allow inspectors to return to Iraq for the next four years. A number of strategic analysts (including me) publically warned prior to the December 1998 attacks that launching such massive air strikes would result in an end to the UN inspections and would result in reducing Iraqi compliance from 95% to 0%. President Clinton clearly wanted the inspections regime to end, however, presumably because - as Senator Clinton has acknowledged - the administration had shifted U.S. policy from containment of Iraq to regime change. Indeed, the resulting absence of inspectors became the principal rationale for President George W. Bush, Senator Clinton and others to support an invasion of Iraq four years later.
Indeed, in Thursday night’s debate, Senator Clinton claims that she voted to authorize war against Iraq in October 2002 because “we needed to put inspectors in.” However, this was also a lie, since Saddam Hussein had by that time already agreed for a return of the weapons inspectors. Furthermore, Senator Clinton voted against the substitute Levin amendment, which would have also granted President Bush authority to use force, but only if Iraq defied subsequent UN demands regarding the inspections process. Instead, Senator Clinton voted for the Republican-sponsored resolution to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his own choosing regardless of whether inspectors returned. Indeed, unfettered large-scale weapons inspections had been going on in Iraq for nearly four months at the time the Bush administration launched the March 2003 invasion that Senator Clinton had voted to authorize.
This is part of a longstanding pattern of Senator Hillary Clinton misleading the American public about Iraq in order to justify her militaristic policies. It is important to remember that, back in October 2002, despite widespread and public skepticism expressed by arms control experts over the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq had somehow re-armed itself, Senator Clinton was insisting that Iraq’s possession of biological and chemical weapons was “not in doubt” and was “undisputed.” She also claimed, despite the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iraq’s nuclear program had been completely eliminated, that Iraq was “trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
This inevitably raises concerns that if Hillary Clinton is elected president, she will have no qualms about lying once again to the American people in order to justify going to war.
NEW THREAD IS UP.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Super Tuesday states; don't forget to vote tomorrow.