BUSH's ILLEGAL WAR IN IRAQ IS FINANCING DEATHS OF AMERICANS

RUN, RUSH, READ Keith Olbermann's riveting special commentary on Wednesday May 23. Bush , he says is the most shameful president in history, and he is "financing the deaths of Americans" in this illegal, heinous war. To paraphrase, Bush has manipulated Congress into thinking the troops will not get armor or protection, whereas a good president -- any honest leader, would never shame Congress and use the troops as barter. A good leader would cut Halliburton's profits — beg, borrow or steal from other "pork" projects before he'd cut troop funding. The American people have spoken, and Bush, in his arrogance has put Democrats between a rock and a hard place.

On the other hand, the Democrats must NOT BACK DOWN. We must end this war.

I received this disturbing news item from my friend Garth Bixxo:

This little known National Security Presidential Directive NDPD #51 of May 9th, essentially gives Bush the authority to take over the country --- like a dictator. I believe it has to be approved by Congress -- and pray that they quash it immediately.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/print/20070509-12.html

When the Cold War began in the 1950s, Directives were written and put into place in case of an atomic bomb attack on the government. These directives are still in effect---- meaning that #51 is not need, and is merely a power grab by Karl Rove and-or whoever directed it be written.

Here's how www.truthout.org states it:
Bush Anoints Himself as
Ensurer of Constitutional Government
in Emergency
Scary 'eh---sounds like we'd better impeach him before he implements NSPD#51.
Every concerned citizen should call, write their Congressperson and Senator to say STOP

Here's the Truthout.org write-up---by way of an Executive Summary which reads between the lines.

Bush Anoints Himself as the Ensurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency
By Matthew Rothschild

In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a "catastrophic emergency."
With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack. Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility "for ensuring constitutional government."

He laid this all out in a document entitled "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20." The White House released it on May 9.

Other than a discussion on Daily Kos led off by a posting by Leo Fender, and a pro-forma notice in a couple of mainstream newspapers, this document has gone unremarked upon.

The subject of the document is entitled "National Continuity Policy."

It defines a "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function."

This could mean another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California, I imagine, since it says it would include "localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies."

The document emphasizes the need to ensure "the continued function of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government," it states.

But it says flat out: "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."

The document waves at the need to work closely with the other two branches, saying there will be "a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government." But this effort will be "coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers."

Among the efforts coordinated by the President would ensuring the capability of the three branches of government to "provide for orderly succession" and "appropriate transition of leadership."

The document designates a National Continuity Coordinator, who would be the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

The document gives the Vice President a role in implementing the provisions of the contingency plans.

Please check out http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/print/20070509-12.html

Gas Wars

Kucinich to Speak for Full Hour on House Floor on Iraq Oil LawMay 22nd, 2007

May 22nd, 2007
We encourage you to comment on this press release, and the impact this may have on the presidential race for 2008. This is the first time Congress has had a full discussion on the privatization of Iraq’s oil since the beginning of the war. http://blog.pdamerica.org/?p=1117
WASHINGTON DC - WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2007 - At approximately 11:00 a.m. today, Congressman Dennis Kucinich will invoke a rarely used procedure to offer a privileged motion claiming one hour of time to speak on the floor of the House of Representatives about current legislative plans to privatize Iraq’s oil.
This will be the first time in Congress that there has been a full discussion of the covert efforts to accomplish privatization of Iraq’s oil through the supplemental spending bill.
Kucinich has alerted his colleagues to this concern in the past. Today he will do so on the floor of the House.
Kucinich argued against invading Iraq prior to the 2003 vote that authorized it. He published his case against it and helped persuade many of his colleagues to vote No. Kucinich challenged the legality of the war in court in an effort to prevent it. He proposed a detailed plan to end the occupation of Iraq over three years ago. His current plan is found in his bill HR 1234, which includes these findings:
“Any attempt to sell Iraqi oil assets during the United States occupation will be a significant stumbling block to peaceful resolution. There must be fairness in the distribution of oil resources in Iraq.”
Kucinich has voted against every new funding bill for the occupation, including the recent Supplemental. He supports using the power of the purse to end the war. He opposes any attack on Iran and proposes formally forswearing the use of so-called preventive war. He has proposed the creation of a Department of Peace to address international and domestic violence.
As with all House sessions, this speech will be televised on C-Span.

The increase in gas prices has cost U.S consumers an extra twenty billion dollars so far this year according to the Government Accountability Office. This added cost has taken money out of the economy that normally would have been spent on consumer products.

The GAO told Congress that a large amount of oil refining capacity and lower inventories have led to the rise in gas prices. Many feel the Iraq war has caused oil to be withheld from U.S consumers. Gas prices have risen $1.05 since early February. U.S gas prices are at an all time high and getting higher.

The Energy Departments reports that gasoline prices have risen 50% since January, which ranks as one of the largest ongoing increases recorded in U.S history. The high price of gasoline has hurt retail as sales have fallen 1.5% week by week.

Many are calling for the breaking up of oil companies and undoing the mega-mergers which may bring about more competition within the industry. Calls from consumers and business alike have fallen on deaf ears in the Bush administration.

Americans have watched oil prices rise as the Texas Oil Man became President. They have watched Exxon and Chevron rake in record profits while gasoline prices continue to rise. They have seen the economy increasingly slow to a limp, while U.S Corporations continue to flourish.

One of the many promises the Bush administration made when they overtly invaded Iraq, was that gas prices in the U.S would be much lower. These promises along with many other insincere boasts have never stimulated into truth.

If gasoline prices are to ever return to affordable levels, Congress must stop the Iraq war, force U.S oil companies to lower prices and limit profits that oil companies can make without major relief to the consumer.

The most crucial thing Americans can do to bring gas prices down rapidly is to simply remove the current "Commander In Chief and his catalog of corruption from office. The final step will be to keep oil men from residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

UNIFIED FIELD

PROFILE OF A PUBLIC SERVANT: Audrey Hepburn has always been my favorite because of her elegant spirit and her humanitarian work. Of the current crop, I admire Angelina Jolie because of her huge heart — as well as her work with Genocide Prevention in Darfur. She is a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador. She was at Cannes Film Festival last weekend. Jolie, who plays the widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in "A Mighty Heart," said she was overwhelmed by Mariane Pearl's inner strength and her ability to let go of hatred. MORE BELOW, but first a few thoughts on Einstein's Unified Field...

You can be attractive even if you're not "good looking" because if you radiate love, you attract people. Enthusiasm and courage actually change your brain waves, changing the molecular structure around you. I personally have always believed that science proves God. The proof is in life itself - the multitudinous objects of beauty and creation. Thought is molecular, bringing objects we form (with our thoughts) into view. But the creative force in the universe is love, which can be proven as an energy. Einstein was just short of admitting what he already suspected, that the unified field is love. And by the way, there is no linear time. Step outside the race belief, outside the man made box of space and time. - Lydia

Why this scientist believes in God
By Dr. Francis Collins
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the Human Genome Project. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?" (Watch Francis Collins discuss how he came to believe in God Video)

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.

For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

ANGELINA JOLIE AT CANNES...
Jolie, Pearl and Brad Pitt, the movie's co-producer, were at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday for the premiere of the movie about Pearl's abduction and murder in Pakistan in 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militants.

The film, shot in a naturalistic documentary style, recounts the search to find Pearl's kidnappers and his widow's struggle to come to terms with his death.

"For me, so much of why this film was important to do is because I highly doubt there is anybody in this room who has more reason to hold hate inside herself than Mariane, and she doesn't," Jolie told reporters.

"That is, I think, a lesson for all of us," the

I NEED TO KNOW?

The Way to Divinity

If anyone speaks ill of you,
Praise them always.
If anyone injures you,
Serve them nicely.
If anyone persecutes you,
Help them in all possible ways.
You will attain
immense strength.
You will control anger and pride.
You will enjoy
peace, poise, and serenity.
You will become divine.

- Swami Sivananda
Hindu

(Jesus says the same thing in his Sermon on the Mount.)



CATHERINE CRIER from COURT TV had to reschedule. Today, Doug and I wing it with a mix of politics and non-political comedy.

SATURDAY MORNINGS TUNE IN LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS and LOS ANGELES to our show BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK
from 9 - 10 a.m. We broadcast live -- or go to our website and click on the link to hear the entire show in the archives.



The following thoughts are from my beautiful sister Kathy.

Here's my opinion.

I hate this kind of thing. The film is simplistic and sentimental
tripe. It addresses a non-issue. Who is this film aimed at? No one
blames the soldiers! No one hates them for "doing their job" or
doesn't "support our troops". The premise of the film is a fiction.
It is propaganda.

This film and "patriotic" statements like it completely sidesteps the
fact that none of those soldiers had to die, because they should not
have been there in the first place. It's selling an old idea that to
die in war is honorable.

If you have a family member serving in Iraq, of course you are proud
of them! The rest of us are just disgusted and ashamed at our
government that even one American has had to die over there. No one
blames the soldiers for fighting an immoral and unjust war right now.
They are just doing the government's (dirty) work.

Also. Don't try to tell me how to feel! I don't have to feel "proud"
of the American soldiers. I can feel that they are very brave, and
strong, and feel very sorry that they are there. I can feel angry and
sad. But no, I'm not particularly proud. I feel afraid, worried,
upset, sorry and sad and deeply angry at my government for creating
the mess we find ourselves in in Iraq where so many beautiful lives
have been cut short on all sides of the conflict. I want all
non-Iraqi troops to get to go home, where ever they are from.

War is not inherently just or good. War is a human tragedy on a grand
scale. It should be considered a last resort. I believe it is only
justified to stop a genocide. But war is more often a strategic game
of the elite - a machine created by the powerful to divide and
re-divide wealth and power amongst themselves.

The idea of patriotism in a time of war is inherently propagandistic.
If you buy into it, then you probably also believe that things go
better with Coke or that Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.
Who benefits the most by selling these ideas to the public?

Can you imagine this type of film coming from the jihad point of
view? Sentimentalizing the self-sacrifice of the suicide bomber,
complete with heart-tugging strings? We would all be spitting angry,
and see the suicide bombers themselves as pawns of an evil elite.

As a nation we have absolutely nothing to be proud of in the current
war in Iraq. Our leadership has destroyed our reputation worldwide
and our economy at home, making the world a much more dangerous place
than it was before and right after 9/11. I don't blame the soldiers
for this, or hold it against them. I'm smart enough to make the
distinction that to hate this war is not the same thing as hating the
people fighting it.

The Newshour with Jim Lehrer is the only news show that still honors
the fallen soldiers every night at the end of the newscast. Why do
you think the other networks stopped doing so years ago? The Newshour
uses no sentimental music - only complete silence, with portraits,
names and home towns. This is a thousand times more powerful to me,
because it isn't trying to manipulate my emotions the way this piece
does.

I do admire men and women who
join up and go off to war when everyone in the country is contributing,
and when we've actually been attacked -- but when the rich keep getting
richer and no one else is expected to make any sacrifices, etc., etc.
-- well, it really is propaganda. Also, I do not like the idea of
mercenary forces, where people are paid to do all the fighting and the
sons and daughters of all the warmongers (and the chicken hawks
themselves) avoid having to serve.

Thanks for letting me express my reaction!

k


Don't forget to listen to the Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk Show Saturday at 9:00 AM PST. BashamandCornell

UPPERDOG vs. UNDERDOG

We are pleased to have CATHERINE CRIER from COURT TV on our show Saturday, May 19

SATURDAY MORNINGS TUNE IN LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS and LOS ANGELES to our show BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK
from 9 - 10 a.m. We broadcast live -- or go to our website and click on the link to hear the entire show in the archives.

"Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." That's what good preachers, and good journalists, do. It makes sense that comics, who sometimes preach and sometimes report the news, would follow this motto as well.

Imus "broke the power equation," Rogers says. He afflicted the afflicted, which made him a bully instead of a comic. That's not funny.

This happens a lot, not just with comics, but with journalists and preachers too. They get the motto backwards, they break the power equation. The journalists cozy up to the powerful, the preachers become bullying scolds. Both start to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. It's nothing new, Jesus described the same thing thousands of years ago, "They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them."

The tricky thing -- whether you're a journalist, preacher or comic -- is that "the comfortable" and "the afflicted" are not immutable categories. Anyone, at some point, might be in either category. White House spokesman Tony Snow, for example, has had a lucrative career as a dishonest and thoroughly unprincipled apologist for power. That made him fair game for exposure, for jokes and jeremiads. But Snow now has cancer in his liver and the prognosis is not good. And jokes at the expense of a cancer victim just aren't funny. Kicking a man when he is down is the work of a bully.

This is, again, what I think Orwell was getting at in that essay on Charles Dickens I've taken to quoting a bit too often: Orwell on Dickens
Where [Dickens] is Christian is in his quasi-instinctive siding with the oppressed against the oppressors. As a matter of course he is on the side of the underdog, always and everywhere. To carry this to its logical conclusion one has got to change sides when the underdog becomes an upperdog, and in fact Dickens does tend to do so.

Which underscores Rogers' point, that context matters. The transgressive humor of the underdog is funny. The transgressive "humor" of the upperdog is merely bullying. And that's not funny. (It's not even really transgressive, since the upperdogs make and enforce the rules.)

The dynamic at work here is, of course, justice. Comedy doesn't so much "steal" power as reclaim it. Undermining injustice is funny. Enforcing it is not. This is as true for preachers and journalists as it is for comics.

Posted by Fred Clark SLACKTIVIST

Fred Clark is a religious scholar and minister. Slacktivist is a wonderful website devoted to debunking the sinister and hilarious "Left Behind" novels by LaHaye-Jenkins.

Cartoon by Stephen Pitt: Rove-Gonzales-Abu Grahib

Are You Better Off?

As we are entering the season where the focus shifts to the next election, we see a group of Republican candidates espousing the ongoing war and comparing themselves to their view of the perfect President Ronald Reagan.

As progressives maybe we need to quote Ronald Reagan from time to time in addressing the issues of today. Reagan asked a famous question during the debates of the 1980 election season that brought him to prominence. This question applies today as well.

Are you better off today than you were six years ago? Do you feel that your job is secure now that gas prices have risen well above three dollars per gallon and predictions that they will reach four dollars seem very real?

Are you better off today with the President having the country bogged down in a war in Iraq with no end in sight? Have you gained any benefit from the war in Iraq, or has it cost this country in ways we will never recover?

Are you better off with the majority of the world turning against us and those in the Middle East planning to bring the United States down? Are you safer with the choices that this President and his Republican allies have made in foreign policy?

Are you better able to afford college costs for your children under the economy of George W Bush? Are you confident that your children will be able to afford a home, or raise a family with the direction our country is going?

Are you confident you and your family will have affordable health care in the future, or has the decisions of deficits and war brought that confidence to an end? Are the forty seven million Americans without health care better off today than they were six years ago?

Are the thirty seven million low-income Americans living in poverty better off today than they were six years ago? Are the twenty six million Americans receiving food stamps better off or do they face a Food Stamp program in peril?

Are we better off as a nation to have many of our privacy rights taken away? Are we confident we can trust those in government to protect our identities and our privacy or will we continue to see computers disappear, personal records compromised and our privacy in peril?

Are we winning any of the wars this President has started? Are we better off to coax a war with Iran? Have we seen oil prices fall from the take over of Iraqi oil? Do we have more allies today that we had six years ago?

These are but a few questions that as an American you can ask. These questions go to the basic principle of life in America today. As you hear the Republican candidates espouse war and claim the moniker of Reagan, ask your self the Reagan question. Are we better off today under Republican leadership than we were six years ago.?

Cartoon copyright credit to Stephen Pitt Cartoons stephenpittcartoons

I.O.U Mom

In 1870 Julia Ward Howe penned the Mother's Day proclamation. Howe had earlier authored the famous Battle Hymn of the Republic. Howe wrote the Mother's Day proclamation calling for the women of the world to unite for peace.

The following piece was written in 1976 in honor of moms everywhere. These lyrics fit the typical mom. It probably describes your mom. Happy Mother's Day to all. We owe you more than we can ever repay.


I.O.U.
(Dean / Markes)

Many people look through their wallet or their pocket books and, way down at the bottom, past the
credit cards and baby pictures and so on, you usually find a little 'ol piece of dog-eared poetry.
I was cleaning out my wallet the other day and ran across a whole bunch of I.O.U's, some of 'em
thirty-five years overdue. And you know the funny thing, all these I.O.U's are owed to one person
and I kinda felt like that maybe now would be a pretty good time for an accountin'.
Mom, I sure hope you're listenin'.
Sweet lady, I.O.U. for so many things.....
A lot of services, like nightwatchman for instance.....
Lyin' awake nights, listenin' for coughs and cries and creakin'
floorboards.....hah-hah, and me comin' in too late.
Boy, you had the eye of an eagle and the roar of a lion,
But you always had a heart as big as a house.
I.O.U. for services like, uh, short order cook, chef, baker.....
For makin' sirloin out o' hamburger an' turkey out o' tuna fish,
And big ol' strappin' boys out of leftovers.
I.O.U. for cleanin' services,
The daily scrubbing of face and ears....all work done by hand.
And for the frequent dustin' of a small boy's pants
To try to make sure that you led a spotless life.
And for washin' and ironin' that no laundry could ever do.
Foy dryin' the tears of childhood
And ironin' out the problems of growin' up.
I.O.U. for services as a bodyguard,
For protectin' me from the terrors of thunderstorms and nightmares
Hah, And too many green apples.
And Lord knows, I.O.U. for medical attention,
For nursing me through measles, mumps, bruises,
Bumps, splinters and spring fever.
Oh-oh, let's not forget medical advice....important things like,
"If you keep on scratching that, it'll never get well" or
"If you cross your eyes, they're gonna stick like that".
And probably the most important advice of all,
"Boy, you be sure you got on clean underwear, in case you're in an accident".
And I.O.U. for veterinarian services,
For feeding every lost dog that I dragged home at the end of the rope,
And for healing the pains of puppy love.
And I.O.U. for entertainment.....
Entertainment that kept the household goin' through some pretty rough times.....
And for wonderful productions at Christmas, the Fourth of July, Birthdays.....
And for making make-believe come true.....
And you did it all on such a limited budget.
I.O.U. for construction work, for building kites and confidence, hopes and dreams an'.....
Somehow you made them all touch the sky.....
And for cementin' together a family
So it would stand the worst kind of shocks and blows.....
And for layin' down a good strong foundation to build a life on.
I.O.U. for carrier charges.....
For carryin' me on your books for the necessities of life
That a growin' boy somehow, well, they just gotta have.
Things like, hah-hah, a pair of high top boots,
With a little pocket on the side for a jack-knife.
And one thing, Mom, I'll never forget....
When there were two pieces of pie and three hungry people.....
You were always the one who decided, well, I'm not really that hungry anyhow.
These are just a few of the things for which payment is long overdue..
The person that I owe 'em to worked very, very cheap....
She managed by simply doin' without a whole lot o' things that she needed herself....
My I.O.U's add up to more than I could ever hope to repay,
But you know the nicest thing about it all....
That I know, that she had marked the entire bill 'Paid In Full'
For just one kiss and four little words....Mom, I Love You!

Happy Mother's Day Lydia Cornell. This piece is especially for you!