America's Only Hope

After weighing the merits of the arguments for or against Obama, I am now more convinced than ever that Barack Obama is what we need in a president for this country, for this world.

The Wright controversy puts us squarely in the politics of the last 7 years. Politics of distraction. Politics of negativity. Politics of distortion. This has been cooked up by the Republicans (it took fire on Fox), has been seasoned by Clinton (to swing momentum in her direction) and burnt by the Media pundits (clips played over and over to shape public opinion). I am a steadfast supporter of Obama and that hasn't changed and will not change.

As a matter of fact, I don't have to look at the news shows to know what their next move will be. I'm so used to it. This is the same thing that has been happening for the last 7 years. And what the right wing, the military infrastructure and the Clintons would like is nothing better than to have politics continue as it's been for this generation and beyond.

Obama represents a break from what has been, what hasn't worked for Americans and what will serve our long term interests through out the rest of the world.

Clinton will not be able to change our politics of destruction because quite simply she's of it, is married to it, is indoctrinated by it. She has bought into the belief that since the Right wing is better at Politics that she will play the game their way and if she should be so lucky to win the nomination, she will have a chance to shape a few of her policies if again she should be so lucky to make it past the right wing in the General Election.

Her strategy is a flawed one and one that will never carry her where she would like to go because she's made her bed with the lot of the right wing. She has bought into the notion that she can only win by playing the game their way.

Obama's strategy is a better one because it benefits more people. It includes everyone. Be clear on this... the Wright story is a side show that the neo-cons want to play to get everyone in the country to question Obama's run for the presidency. This tells me that the media, Clinton, the entire republican party want to continue to take this country down the wrong path. When that many people jump all over statements that Obama never said and when that many people want to glue Obama to the statements and activities of people he knows without looking at their own actions then I know I'm backing the right candidate. Obama is that candidate. Someone I can believer in. Someone who didn't authorize a war all democrats detested is the right candidate. Someone who didn't vote for a bankruptcy bill that strapped more debt to poor people is the right candidate. Someone who did not take lobbyist money to influence the help he would give all Americans is the right candidate. Someone who will set the mission to bring all U.S. forces home and leave no permanent base in Iraq is the right candidate.

The media - hijacked by the Republicans - will have you believe that Wright is the only issue we care about. It isn't! I don't care about Wright in the quest for the presidency. I care about this country and a president who can lead us out of the same dumb kind of politics we've all come to hate. Obama supporters talk more about the attributes of Obama and stay away from the peripheral issues the Media and the Republicans will have you salivating over.

The right wing lives on hypocrisy. That's why I know I'm on the correct bandwagon. A candidate that acts in the best interest of his own party, in the best interest of his country, in the best interest of a people, in the interest of hope and optimism is the only candidate who can lead us out of this darkness.

Obama should be and will be the next president of these United States.

Above The Law?

The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour on the job.

The exception claimed by Cheney's counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president's chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.

Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney's conduct is "not within the [congressional] committee's power of inquiry".

"Congress lacks the constitutional power to regulate by law what a vice-president communicates in the performance of the vice president's official duties, or what a vice president recommends that a president communicate," Wheelbarger wrote to senior aides on Capitol Hill.

The exception claimed by Cheney's office recalls his attempt last year to evade rules for classified documents by deeming the vice-president's office a hybrid branch of government - both executive and legislative.

The Democratic congressman who is investigating the legal framework for the violent interrogation of terrorist suspects, John Conyers, has asked Addington and several other top Bush administration lawyers to testify. Thus far all have claimed their deliberations are privileged.

However, Philippe Sands QC, law professor at University College, London, has agreed to appear in Washington and discuss the revelations in Torture Team, his new book on the consequences of the brutal tactics used at Guantanamo.

Excerpts from Torture Team were previewed exclusively by the Guardian earlier this month.

Two witnesses sought by Conyers, former US attorney general John Ashcroft and former US justice department lawyer John Yoo, claimed that their involvement in civil lawsuits related to harsh interrogations allows them to avoid appearing before Congress.

In letters to attorneys representing Ashcroft and Yoo, Conyers shot down their arguments and indicated he would pursue subpoenas if their clients did not testify at his May 6 hearing.

"I am aware of no basis for the remarkable claim that pending civil litigation somehow immunises an individual from testifying before Congress," Conyers wrote.

Conyers, who chairs the House of Representatives judiciary committee, also questioned the reasoning of Cheney's lawyer in a letter to Addington.

"It is hard to know what aspect of the invitation [to you] has given rise to concern that the committee might seek to regulate the vice president's recommendations to the president," Conyers wrote.

"Especially since far more obvious potential subjects of legislation are plentiful," he added, mentioning several: US laws on the use of torture on terrorist suspects, the 15-year-old War Crimes Act, and the rules that allowed the Bush White House to receive legal advice from a specialised office within the justice department.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/29/dickcheney.usa

Leave It Up To A Stupid Republican

Things you can count on the Republican leadership to fuck up:

• The deficit.
• Body armor.
• Medicare reform.
• Social Security reform.
• The minimum wage.
• Port security.
• The National Guard.
• Diplomacy.
• The Geneva Conventions.
• Fair elections.
• Clean elections.
• Intelligence.
• Protecting the Constitution.
• Protecting the Bill of Rights.
• Government transparency.
• Oversight.
• Separation of church and state.
• The middle class.
• The poor.
• Tax reform.
• Tax cuts.
• Bankruptcy law.
• Global warming.
• Disaster management.
• Defeating terrorists.
• Saying no to lobbyists.
• Saying yes to public opinion.
• Pre-war planning.
• Post-war planning.
• Competence.
• Civil rights.
• Civil liberties.
• Civil debate.
• Veterans' benefits.
• Hiring based on ability.
• Legal surveillance.
• Morality.
• Energy policy.
• Energy independence.
• End-of-life decisions among spouses.
• Inclusion.
• Learning lessons from history.
• Learning, period.
• Drug policy.
• Fiscal responsibility.
• Trusting the generals.
• Trusting the experts.
• Basic honesty.
• Basic health care.
• Education.
• Creating jobs.
• Keeping CIA operatives' identities secret.
• Catching Osama.
• Playing nice.
• Playing fair.
• Refilling ice cube trays.
• Making paper airplanes.
• Or coffee.
• Tying their shoelaces.
• Making friends.
• Blowing their noses.
• Counting to ten five three.
• Sharing their toys.
• A one car funeral
• Telling the truth.
• Uniting the country.

This is just a short list of things a stupid republican can and will fuck up every god damn time.

Save your country. Vote democrat.

The Military Loves Its Women - A Bit Too Much

The Department of Defense statistics are alarming - one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military.

The warnings to women should begin above the doors of the military recruiting stations, as that is where assaults on women in the military begin - before they are even recruited.

But, now, even more alarming, are deaths of women soldiers in Iraq and in the United States following rape. The military has characterized each death of women who were first sexually assaulted as deaths from "noncombat related injuries," and then added "suicide." Yet, the families of the women whom the military has declared to have committed suicide strongly dispute the findings and are calling for further investigations into the deaths of their daughters. Specific US Army units and certain US military bases in Iraq have an inordinate number of women soldiers who have died of "noncombat related injuries," with several identified as "suicides."

Ninety-four US military women have died in Iraq or during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Twelve US civilian women have been killed in OIF. Thirteen US military women have been killed in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Twelve US Civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan.

Of the 94 US military women who died in Iraq or in OIF, the military says 36 died from noncombat related injuries, which included vehicle accidents, illness, death by "natural causes" and self-inflicted gunshot wounds, or suicide. The military has declared the deaths of the Navy women in Bahrain, which were killed by a third sailor, as homicides. Five deaths have been labeled as suicides, but 15 more deaths occurred under extremely suspicious circumstances.

Eight women soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas, (six from the Fourth Infantry Division and two from the 1st Armored Cavalry Division) have died of "noncombat related injuries" on the same base, Camp Taji, and three were raped before their deaths. Two were raped immediately before their deaths and another raped prior to arriving in Iraq. Two military women have died of suspicious "noncombat related injuries" on Balad base, and one was raped before she died. Four deaths have been classified as "suicides."

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

OK, I'm bitter. I lost my American flag lapel pin while I was rolling gutter balls at the bowling alley.

And afterwards they were out of orange juice at the blue-collar diner where I go for my photo opps with "Cup of Joe" Lieberman. Also, I don't own any guns so I can't bitterly cling to them or vent my anger on the few remaining critters within driving distance of the one tank of gas I can afford for my Hummer.

And my flag lapel pin ... honey, have you seen my flag lapel pin?! I can't go out in public without the flag lapel pin! That's like streaking!

Have you noticed we live in a stupid nation now?

It's little wonder. We've had eight years of pure stupid in the White House. And during that time, we the people have been massaged by a stupid media, hectored by stupid hypocrites and stupid moralists, terrified by stupid extremists, pandered to by stupid politicians, lied to by stupid military experts on the TV (see last Sunday's New York Times for details).

It's the natural law of Stupid in/Stupid out.

Welcome to the United States of Stupidity.

It used to be that just the so-called "Red States" (come to think of it, the Red-Blue thing was pretty stupid) were allergic to facts. But now it's all of us. We just sit here and take it all in, complain about gas prices when oil companies run the White House, wonder why the airlines are collapsing and there is no transportation alternative: It's the stupidity, stupid!

While we were sidetracked by John Edwards' haircuts, the oil companies got Congress to destroy Amtrak for them — Bangladesh now has a more efficient passenger rail system than we do. While we sat transfixed by the magnificence of Angelina Jolie's lips and Britney Spears' shaven crotch, Croatia, Latvia and Albania moved ahead of the United States on the global Environmental Sustainability Index. While we munched freedom fries and stockpiled duct tape, our national treasury was looted. And so on.

We the people didn't used to be this dumb.

Maybe we're just stupefied by all the stupid.

We Can Learn A Lot From Animals

One morning a blind bunny was hopping down the bunny trail and tripped over a large snake and fell, kerplop right on his twitchy little nose.

"Oh please excuse me," said the bunny. "I didn't mean to trip over you, but I'm blind and can't see."

"That's perfectly all right," replied the snake. "To be sure, it was my fault. I didn't mean to trip you, but I'm blind too, and I didn't see you coming. By the way, what kind of animal are you?"

Well, I really don't know," said the bunny. "I'm blind, and I've never seen myself.

Maybe you could examine me and find out."

So the snake felt the bunny all over, and he said, "Well, you're soft, and cuddly, and you have long silky ears, and a little fluffy tail and a dear twitchy little nose.

You must be a bunny rabbit!"

The bunny said, "I can't thank you enough. But by the way, what kind of animal are you?"

The snake replied that he didn't know, and the bunny agreed to examine him, and when the bunny was finished, the snake asked, "Well, what kind of an animal am I?"

The bunny had felt the snake all over, and he replied, "You're soft, you're cold, you're slippery, and you haven't got any balls...

You must be a republican.

Time To Strike!

The following is a release put out by the Vermont AFL-CIO, with thanks to reader Richard M. for sending it along ...

The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq.

Montpelier, VT -The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq. The strike, being organized by the Longshore Caucus of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), will seek to shutdown all west coast ports for a period of 8 hours on the day of May 1st 2008. The Vermont AFL-CIO is the first state labor federation to publicly back the Longshoremen; other state federations are expected to follow.

The resolution, among other things, calls the war in Iraq "immoral, unwanted, and unnecessary", states that the vast majority of working Vermonters oppose the war, and contends that the war will only be brought to an end by "the direct actions of working people." Many other Vermont labor unions and organizations, including the Vermont Workers' Center, have also made official statements condemning the war.

The resolution also calls on working Vermonters to "discuss the actions of the Longshoremen, to wear anti-war buttons, and to take various actions of their own design and choosing in their workplace on May 1st, 2008."

"Workers in Vermont and all across this nation are against this war. We have already demanded that the government end it, but they have consistently failed to heed our words. Therefore working people are beginning to take concrete steps to make our resistance known. If the war does not immediately end we, the unions and working people of Vermont, will also be compelled to take appropriate action," said David Van Deusen, a District Vice President of the Vermont AFL-CIO.

Talkin' Bout My Generation

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat and we discovered and experimented with drugs of all shapes and sizes. We smoked pot and discovered alcohol.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computer's and no Internet or chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from the accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

Something that the kids today will NEVER understand.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with
scissors, doesn't it?

Billary Needs To Be Medicated

The latest findings from ABC News and the Washington Post finds that a majority of respondents find the former first lady untrustworthy, compared to a majority who trusted her before the campaign began.

Clinton is viewed as "honest and trustworthy" by just 39 percent of Americans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, compared with 52 percent in May 2006. Nearly six in 10 said in the new poll that she is not honest and trustworthy. And now, compared with Obama, Clinton has a deep trust deficit among Democrats, trailing him by 23 points as the more honest, an area on which she once led both Obama and John Edwards.

A Republicunt In A Democrat Hat

Okay, good and honest Hillary supporters, men and women, let's have a little history lesson for some context.

Back in 1984, our then President, Ronald Reagan, no doubt in the early stages of Alzheimer's, made a little joke while testing a mike. Not thinking anyone beyond the studio would ever hear, he said, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

When the quote got out, Reagan's lead over Walter Mondale slipped (very temporarily) by seven points. The Left was justifiably in an uproar over it. And Reagan was making a joke - a bad one, one that no doubt revealed his actual mindset, but, still and all, a joke.

For the third time now, Hillary Clinton, your candidate, has non-jokingly threatened to destroy Iran if that nation launches a nuclear strike on Israel. At the debate last week, she said Iran would face "massive retaliation." On Olbermann this week, she reiterated that and added, as if to clarify, that Iran's "use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States."

Today, she took it even further, into territory that, c'mon, admit it, Clinton supporters, if a Republican had said it, you'd be going fucking crazy about the fearmongering and paranoiac fantasizing.

Said Clinton on Good Morning America, "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Yes, she claims to be saying it only to offer deterrence. But, really, isn't that understood about the United States?

That if we wanted to, we could "totally obliterate" most of the Earth?

So, by saying it, Clinton accomplishes something of a pandering trifecta: she lets the Israel-humpers know she's willing to wreck shit for them, she lets the pro-military people know she ain't scared of shit, and she lets gun owners know she's willing to fire the largest gun of all.

No Fool Like An Old Fool

McCain Hates America

By the standards set forth by dems, stupid republicunts and morons in the media.

You know, I'm SOOOOOOOO glad there's no other issues more pressing like the economy, the occupation of Iraq and things like that.

How un-American can you be? Not to wear a flag pin on your lapel.

UPSIDE DOWN.

Is The Voice Of The People FINALLY Being Heard?

Today Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced legislation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The bill, dubbed the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008, marks the first time in decades that Congress has considered removing criminal penalties for marijuana. Congressman Frank's legislation would decriminalize the possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana (3ozs) and the not-for-profit transfer of one ounce of marijuana. It would not affect laws prohibiting drug sales or the cultivation of marijuana, and it would not affect state or local laws regulating marijuana possession.

"It's time for the politicians to catch up with the public on this ," Congressman Frank said. "The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly."

The bill incorporates the basic recommendation of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (also known as the Shafer Commission). The commission, which was administered by the White House and published its findings in 1972, recommended that then-president Richard Nixon decriminalize possession of marijuana in amounts that constituted "simple possession."

Thirty-six years later, Rep. Frank will try to do just that.

A Stroll Down Memory Lane

Hey, remember 2000?

We had an election that year!

Let's recall then-candidate George W. Bush's pitch about how he'd lower gas prices, which at the time were averaging $1.66 per gallon:

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.

"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, told reporters here today. "Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.''

He'd just build up a boatload of goodwill within the Arab world and then tell those rag-heads to open up the spigot! Unlike that loser Clinton ...

Implicit in his comments was a criticism of the Clinton administration as failing to take advantage of the good will that the United States built with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Also implicit was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil-producing nations that they owed the United States something in return.

''Ours is a nation that helped Kuwait and the Saudis, and you'd think we'd have the capital necessary to convince them to increase the crude supplies,'' he said.

Asked why the Clinton administration had not been able to use the power of personal persuasion, Mr. Bush said: ''The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?'''

I guess that is the fundamental question, and if we were to reduce the measure of "successful foreign policy" to the profits raked in by Big Oil, then Bush's FoPo would indeed be the most successful ever.

When Bush made that oath to put the squeeze on his Saudi cousins, crude oil was trading at about $35 per barrel.

Skipping forward to the present, Reuters reports on a new poll that finds, "Eight out of 10 Arabs have an unfavorable view of the United States."

"The price of New York oil hit a record high 115.54 dollars per barrel on Thursday."

Average price of a gallon of gas today: $3.50

Chicago's Finest Kill Defenseless Animal

Good job you cowardly fucks. Did you kill it just because it made one of you assholes look bad by walking behind you in your hunt for blood.

Fuck you CPD.

What Matters Most?

I've been talking to a lot of friends of mine about the presidential election.

Some are very conservative; others are extremely liberal. And some like me fall in the middle, or lean slightly one way or another.

But there is one issue I have raised that EVERYONE I talk to seems to agree on:

We are all sick of discussing stuff about candidates that has NOTHING to do with the important issues of this election.

We all want to hear more about the candidates' different viewpoints and ideas about:

• The economy
• The Iraq War
• The War on Terror
• Foreign Relations (China, Russia, Middle East, NATO, etc)
• Immigration
• Health care
• Energy
• The Supreme Court and social issues

We do NOT want to hear anymore about:

• Obama is an elitist who looks down on small town America.
• Hillary lied about being under sniper fire.
• McCain is too old to be President.
• Obama is tied into radicals like Reverend Wright and William Ayres.
• Hillary is power hungry and will say anything to be elected.
• McCain has anger management issues.

...you get the picture.

But politics seems to care more about ALL the bullshit and NOT the issues at hand. Is it any wonder America is so fucked up?

Enough of the "gotcha" politics and the swiftboating.

But the ultimate blame falls directly in the lap of the American citizens, NOT the politicians. After all, it is us that put these idiots in the position of getting elected. America doesn't seem to really give a shit about the issues. THEY WANT DIRT!

Thats why more people vote for the "American Idol" instead of the elections of their political leaders.

Ayn Rand wrote in The Fountainhead that if you want to attack someone, you don't attack what they do. You call them an atheist or a womanizer or something worse, and this way you distract attention away from this issues at hand. This is what has been increasingly happening to American politics, and no matter what side of the issues you are on, it is detrimental to all of us.

It needs to stop.

Does anyone else share my opinion on this?

A Bitter Pill

Apparently on the campaign trail Obama made a mistake in telling the truth.

Imagine, saying that Americans are "bitter" about the economy.

And that stupid cunt Hillary is calling him an elitist about it along with her republicunt colleagues.

Strip down what Obama was saying: He addressed the trouble his campaign of hope and change was having in "places where people feel most cynical about government."

While he has tried to speak concretely about the conditions of peoples' lives, his campaign continues to have trouble making inroads among white working class voters, and "old economy" voters whose idea of change isn't hope but rather losing a job or a pension. Yet he is narrowing the margins.

In Muncie, Indiana Saturday morning, Obama was counterpunching, as he should be-- explaining and expanding on his remarks:

The problem is our politics doesn't let the American people get heard. People know that it's not easy solving some of these problems but they want to feel like at least someone is fighting for them.

It's interesting. Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare up because I said something that everybody knows is true which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois who are bitter.

They are angry.

They are Fed Up American's!

They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through.

So I said well you know when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community.

And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country or they get frustrated about how things are changing.

That's a natural response.

But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to.

What we need is a government that is actually paying attention. A government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.

At a time when 81% of the country thinks we're heading in the wrong direction (aren't these people bitter?) , isn't it pretty clear that our economy has not performed well for most people for at least a generation, and is now heading into what everyone sentient would agree are likely to be some very tough times.

Recovery from this recession is also likely to be even slower than the essentially jobless recovery from the last. The traditional means of jump-starting the economy -- dropping interest rates, or boosting consumer spending -- have been substantially exhausted, and their pell-mell unregulated pursuit is a large part of what got us into our current mess.

The political discontent is obvious--and Obama is trying to speak to that.

Americans are fed up with government's failure to do anything much for them, or that they're proud of being part of. " Here's how it is," he said in his April 6 remarks. " In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania people have been beaten down for so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it." Here's where the Right's generation-long attack on government has done real damage to citizen confidence in government. We see it all around us everyday. But. surely the other critical source of citizen doubt is that government has in fact done little recently to measurably improve their lives and give them a sense of national purpose. After all, Bill Clinton, long considered the master politician of his age, was basically in the business of lowering expectations of government even faster than they were disappointed. Obama is trying to amp up expectations which the Right and Clintonism have tamped down.

The right wing is clearly desperate. ready to seize on anything to change the subject and hide how out of touch they are with an America in financial pain. But how cynical of the Clinton campaign to claim Obama was condescending to the people of Pennsylvania.

She perhaps is the most desperate.

The kitchen sink is quickly emptying.

Unemployed

Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job.

Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.

He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.

A longtime loyalist to George W. Bush dating to their years together in Texas, Mr. Gonzales was once widely viewed as a strong candidate to be the first Hispanic-American nominated one day to the Supreme Court. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he carried an impressive personal story as the child of poor Mexican immigrants.

Despite those credentials, he left office last August with a frayed reputation over his role in the dismissal of several federal prosecutors and the truthfulness of his testimony about a secret eavesdropping program. He has had no full-time job since his resignation, and his principal income has come from giving a handful of talks at colleges and before private business groups.

“Maybe the passage of time will provide some opportunity for him,” said one Washington lawyer who was aware of an inquiry to his firm from a Gonzales associate. “I wouldn’t say ‘rebuffed,’ ” said the lawyer, who asked his name not be used because the situation being described was uncomfortable for Mr. Gonzales. “I would say ‘not taken up.’”

Well, unless he is collecting unemployment, I don’t think he needs to worry about skewing his buddy’s unemployment figures…

Nice to see karma biting him on the ass, though, isn’t it?

Stupid Republicans

Recently I was arguing with one of my dumber friends about the Iraq war. (OBVIOUSLY a STUPID REPUBLICAN)

He loves Bush, and thinks bigger bombs is the answer in Iraq. I wasn't gaining any ground in the argument until I used a simple analogy. I said, "Your solution is like shattering an expensive vase and then saying, 'We need to keep smashing it until it's fixed.'" I stumped him. He was silent. So here's a brief list of other analogies you can use on your dumb friends. And the truth is, I've seen similar ones work on some of the smartest political pundits.

1) The country of Iraq has essentially been demolished. The right-wingers keep saying the answer is continued large-scale military action. That's like if someone got into a car accident, went into a coma, and the doctors believed the patient could be healed by more car accidents. So they just keep putting him into cars and sending him off cliffs.

2) I've heard people say that being against Bush or Petraeus or the war in Iraq is equivalent to being against the troops. That's like if I knew someone who repeatedly sent brave puppies out into traffic. I called that person an asshole for abusing the puppies and abusing their power. Then you accused me of being anti-puppy.

3) The administration talks about the success of the surge because violence has decreased, but we're in fact paying the militias not to kill each other or our soldiers. It's like if you were treading water, two sharks approach and begin biting you, you give each one a small piece of fish to distract them. While they take a moment to eat the fish, you sit there treading water and yelling, "Problem solved!"

4) At the Petraeus hearings, he refused to give any sort of definition for "victory" in Iraq. That's like running a foot race, you've gone 30 miles, you're exhausted, and when you ask your coach driving along next to you how much farther, he just keeps saying "You'll know it when you get there." He keeps saying that until you collapse and die.

5) KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies have huge pull in our government (such as the vice presidency). So essentially they decide when the war is over. They also happen to be making millions upon millions of dollars from the war. So asking them to decide when the war is over, is like asking an ugly guy cast in a threesome porn movie to decide when the scene is over. Chances are the scene would go on for months, if not years. The entire crew would be standing around asking, "It's not over yet? When will we know when it's time to end it?" And the ugly guy would respond, "Um, it's a bad idea to set timetables. Just trust me on this."

6) Lastly, President Bush is like a colorblind child with a Rubik's Cube.

Significant Progress?

Yesterday, speaking from the White House, the president boasted, “American and Iraqi forces have made significant progress” in Iraq. It got me thinking, haven’t we heard that phrase before in relation to Iraq?

• White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on October 27, 2003: “In the north and south [of Iraq], we have made significant progress.”
• bush on November 13, 2004: “Fighting together, our forces have made significant progress in the last several days.”
• bush on June 28, 2005: “In the past year, we have made significant progress.”
• Vice President Dick(less) Cheney on October 19, 2006: “We’ve made significant progress.”
• bush on February 23, 2007: ” I think we have made significant progress in Iraq.”

Indeed, it’s a phrase the White House has used to describe events in Iraq several hundred times over the last five years. I can’t imagine why anyone would be skeptical about the claim now.

• 
  

It's On!

Ok, from the evil genius at World Wrestling Entertainment comes the ultimate showdown.

I don't know what Vince McMahon has up his sleeve but, personally, Obama will kick the shit out of that bitch Clinton!

Think about it. A younger, stronger opponent goes up against the tired, desperate hosebag.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS!

Awesome Obama Ad

More Vets Speak Out

Just a few years back, Clifton Hicks was an M1 Abrams tank operator almost 7,000 miles away in Iraq.

As an active Army squad member, he'd seen buildings packed with families crumbled and burned. Watched women and children bleed and die. Killed insurgents and civilians alike.

Now 23 years old and back living stateside, Hicks attests that he is a changed man - yet the regret, he said, still remains.

Hicks' stories, along with the testimonies of five other Iraq war veterans, were shared Tuesday night with a group of almost 200 people who attended the local "Winter Soldier, Iraq at UF" event at the Presbyterian and Disciples of Christ Student Center across from the UF campus.

The event coincided with Tuesday's U.S. Senate interviews of head commander Gen. David Petraeus, who recommended that consideration of new American troops withdrawals from Iraq be delayed.

The Gainesville panel, organized by the Iraq Veterans Against the War, Gainesville Veter! ans for Peace, and a few student groups, was inspired by the Vietnam War-era protest of the same name. Last month, Iraq Veterans Against the War organized a similar national protest just outside of Washington, D.C., that drew several hundred U.S. veterans and allowed them to share their own horrors of the Iraq war in hopes of bringing an end to the fighting.

Many of the stories Tuesday night were harrowing and gruesome. Hicks told of a unit firing wantonly into a wedding party. Former Marine Jorge Alvarez told of civilian casualties and suicide bombers. Zollie Goodman, a former aircraft carrier worker, described the smell of burning flesh and the sight of dead bodies left to rot in the street.

"When you're in Iraq," said former infantryman Micah Goulet, "it's almost like you're in another world. You think very carnally. Brutally."

Yet the veterans agreed that they hadn't come to gross out listeners or to point fingers at wrongdoers. Their mission now, t! hey said, was to get their military compatriots home.

"! We're he re because we care about the guys that are still over there," Hicks said. "We're here because we want to bring them home."

But even outside of the battlefield, the veterans said, the dangers to the troops remain.

Hicks spoke of soldiers both in Iraq and back in America beginning to use ecstasy, heroin and prescription drugs to pass the time and block out bad memories. Goodman spoke of the "broken, underfunded and understaffed" Veterans Affairs hospitals that reportedly prescribed unregulated treatments and overlooked soldier suicides. Maggie Martin, a five-year sergeant in the Army and the panel's only woman, told of the military's lack of concern for troops' families and personal relationships.

"They just think soldiers' families are a burden to the mission," she said. "But this is their lives."

"I am more proud to be in this fight," she continued, as members of the audience began to clap, "than anything I did in the Army."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=11266

Does THIS Surprise Anyone?

Its about time mainstream media starts catching up with reality. We knew of shit like this how long ago?

FROM ABC NEWS: U.S. president fucktard bush most senior advisers approved "enhanced interrogation techniques" of top al Qaeda suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency, ABC News reported on Wednesday, citing sources it did not name.

ABC reported that the so-called "principals" discussed interrogation details in dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House.

Then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by a select group of senior officials or their deputies, ABC said.

"Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding," ABC reported.

In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on the ABC report.

Gap Between Fantasy And Reality

Today we have still more evidence of the enormous gap between:

(a) public opinion regarding whether we should withdraw from Iraq and
(b) claims by the political and media establishment about public opinion on that question.

A newly released Gallup poll asked this question, the central question -- really the only relevant question -- regarding what we should do about Iraq:

If you had to choose, which do you think is better for the U.S. -- to keep a
significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation gets better, even if
that takes many years, or to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and
to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq?

Here is the answer, consistent with virtually every other poll that has asked the same question for many, many months:

SET TIMETABLE FOR WITHDRAWL

All Americans - 60%

Democrats - 81%

Republicans - 32%

Independents - 61%

KEEP TROOPS IN IRAQ UNTIL SITUATION IMPROVES

All Americans - 35%

Democrats - 15%

Republicans - 65%

Independents - 32%

The reason why this is the central question is because it describes the two sides of the mainstream political debate. Keeping troops in Iraq until the situation is better, no matter how long it takes, is the Bush/McCain position. Setting a timetable for withdrawal and adhering to it regardless of what is happening there -- i.e., regardless of whether things are better or we're "winning" or "losing" -- is, roughly speaking, the view of the Democratic presidential candidates and, even more so, the defining premise of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq sponsored by 42 Democratic Congressional candidates.

American public opinion isn't "divided" or "split" on this question. There are no pro-war trends here that signal the Iraq War is about to become a huge asset for the McCain campaign. Nor are any of the other cliches used repeatedly by the establishment press to claim that unconditional withdrawal is a politically unpopular position even remotely true.

To the contrary, Americans overwhelmingly favor unconditional withdrawal and it's not even close. They favor that by a 25-point margin, and it's a 29-point margin among independents. Those are huge margins. Very few public policy questions of any significance produce margins that large. And the whole point of asking the question this way -- do you favor withdrawal "regardless of what is going on in Iraq?" -- is to exclude the excuse made by John McCain, The Politico and Cokie Roberts that Americans only want to withdraw once we've "won" or once we've created a peaceful democracy there.

For many reasons, the pro-war political establishment doesn't want to leave Iraq. That's fine. They're entitled to that opinion. But Americans overwhelmingly reject that view. All evidence conclusively demonstrates that. While there are mild differences as to the amount of time the timetables should allow, Americans want, by large margins, to set a timetable to withdraw from Iraq unconditionally -- not if we're winning, not if things are improved, not if we've created a stable democracy, but regardless of those issues. War advocates who keep saying otherwise are just spouting factually false -- and profoundly anti-democratic -- propaganda.

ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE

Betrayus Protested

This is some rather disturbing footage of a protestor (that happens to be a minister) getting manhabdled at the Congressional hearings of General Patraeus. Reportedly, the Reverend had his leg broken in the skirmish.

Top 10 Political Sex Scandals

10. If You Can't Beat Them, Lick a Hooker

Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia is a terrific example of just how much Republicans respect the institution of marriage. Barr doesn't just respect marriage. He defends marriage. That's why he introduced the Defense of Marriage Act: to protect marriage from homosexuals who seek to destroy it by, um, getting married. "The flames of hedonism," he warned, "the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit." Trust Barr on the licking thing. He's an expert. He was photographed licking whipped cream off strippers at his inaugural party. His current wife was no doubt upset. But probably not as upset as his first two wives, to whom he failed to pay child support. (To his credit, Barr did pay for his second wife's abortion, though she still suspects he was cheating on her.)

9. Baby, You Make Me So Harding

Warren G. Harding (a.k.a. Warren G Unit) is the only president whose affairs led to the extortion of a major political party. To wit: his fifteen-year romance with Carrie Fulton Phillips, the wife of a friend, who the Republican National Committee reportedly paid on a monthly basis not to erupt, bimbo-style. Once in office, Harding allegedly took up with one Nan Britton, thirty years his junior. According to Britton, Harding introduced her to a small closet in the White House, where they exchanged kisses and made sweet presidential love. Britton claimed to have had an illegitimate child by Harding as well. In 1923, Harding died unexpectedly from ptomaine poisoning. Rumors ran rampant that his wife, Florence, had poisoned him.

8. Jungle Fever Down in Dixie

It was always good to know where Strom Thurmond stood on race relations. The South Carolina Republican, who died in 2003 at the age of 100, was a strict segregationist from head to toe, with the exception of his penis. His penis, it turns out, was more enlightened. When Thurmond was twenty-two, he impregnated Carrie Butler, his family's African-American maid. She was either fifteen or sixteen at the time. It remains unclear whether their liaison was consensual, but let's assume it was, because, hey, Thurmond seems like a good guy. How good? Well, he ran for President as a segregationist candidate in 1948, vociferously opposed civil-rights legislation, and remained an avowed racist throughout his forty-seven years in the Senate.

7. Spitzing the Magic Pussy

We all know the story now, chapter and verse. New York's crusading Democratic governor, Eliot Spitzer, gets caught in a big-ticket prostitution sting, in part owing to laws he helped push through as attorney general. Numerous tabloid money shots ensue. According to a pimp in the prostitution ring -- and really, if you can't believe a pimp, who can you believe? -- the woman Spitzer hired out had a "magic pussy." Abracadabra! You're out of office, dude!

6. Long Dong Justice

It's not just the executive and legislative branches that get their freak on. Don't count out those horny judicial cats. Especially Clarence Thomas. As a reminder, Thomas is the only African-American Supreme Court Justice more conservative than the Ku Klux Klan. He was also, according to a law professor named Anita Hill, the kind of guy who liked to make unwanted advances toward his hot subordinates by talking up his endowment. These accusations of sexual harassment -- revealed in his 1991 confirmation hearings -- were never proven. After all, what possible motive would Thomas have to lie? Clearly, Hill was clearly a fame-hungry opportunist gunning for a slot on reality TV.

5. Out of the Closet and into the Stall

Wouldn't it be weird if a Republican Senator from a conservative state pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, after having been arrested for lewd conduct, i.e. allegedly propositioning an undercover officer in an airport bathroom? And wouldn't it be even weirder if he resigned his Senate seat, then unresigned? And if numerous men kept saying they'd had sex with him? Wouldn't that be weird?

4. The Jesus and Meth Chain

As President of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard used to have weekly teleconferences with the man he helped elect in 2004, George W. Bush. The two discussed areas of mutual interest, such as the wonderfulness of Jesus and how to char-grill sodomites properly. These tete-a-tetes ended in 2006, when the lizardy pastor confessed to "sexual immorality." What he actually meant was, "going on crystal meth binges and cornholing my male prostitute/supplier." At last count, Haggard had received counseling and was no longer gay.

3. All Men Are Created Horny

Did Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration of Independence, two-term president (1801-1809), purchaser of Louisiana and other territories, and the guy on the nickel, actually live with one of his female slaves and father her children? I have no idea, but I'll bet you Strom Thurmond knows. There is no question that Sally Hemings was one of his slaves, and that she came to Paris to care for Jefferson's nine-year-old daughter, Isabel. She appears to have spent the rest of her years at Monticello, Jefferson's blingy Virginia crib. She also had six kids. Genetic testing and genealogical study have established a clear link between Jefferson and the Hemings brood. But not enough to qualify Jefferson for a special posthumous presidential edition of The Jerry Springer Show. Where is Matt Drudge when you really need him?

2. "Get a Ruler and Measure It For Me"

Those are the exact words of an instant message sent by Mark Foley (R-Florida) to a sixteen-year-old male congressional page. Foley also sent these messages:

how my favorite young stud doing

good so your getting horny

did you spank it this weekend yourself

well I have a totally stiff wood now

we may need to drink at my house so we dont get busted Do I make you a little horny?

I know what you're thinking: the guy needs to work on his IM grammar chops. But here's something else kind of shady about Foley: As chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, he introduced legislation targeting online sexual predators. As he explained to an NPR interviewer in 2002, "Where I have to draw the line is using children for the excitement of those more mature people who should know the difference and know better." Right. The touching thing about the Foley scandal wasn't just that he was a skeeve, but that the entire House Leadership knew he was a skeeve and covered his ass for more than a year.

That, my friends, is party unity.

1. Oral in the Oval

It's Clinton and Lewinsky at the top of the ticket!

Could there really be any doubt?

After all, this is the scandal that once and for all rid the press corps of any inconvenient impulse to, for instance, exercise a conscience.

To review the basics: on nine occasions Bill Clinton engaged in various forms of sexual behavior -- up to but not including genital penetration -- with Monica Lewinsky, then a 22-year-old intern, in and around the Oval Office. The exact details were eventually compiled by attorney/amateur pornographer Kenneth Starr, who served as Special Independent Counsel in Charge of Finding Some Kind of Shit on the Clintons for many many years.

The Republican dominated House of Representatives -- led by confessed adulterers Henry Hyde and Bob Livingston -- impeached Clinton in 1998. He was acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice after a twenty-one-day Senate trial. He emerged from the proceedings more popular with the American people than he had been before them. Why? Because the American people are more mature than the press that panders to them. In the end, we'd prefer cold, hard leadership to hot sex.

Imagine that.

http://www.alternet.org/sex/81423/

Mainstream Media - GO FUCK YOURSELVES!

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired.

A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking.

It was revealed that the bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S.

The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

“Yoo and torture” - 102

“Mukasey and 9/11″ — 73

“Yoo and Fourth Amendment” — 16

“Obama and bowling” — 1,043

“Obama and Wright” — More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)

“Obama and patriotism” - 1,607

“Clinton and Lewinsky” — 1,079

The sad thing is that the mainstream press really does believe that things like Obama’s poor bowling skills and the Clinton’s tax returns are more important stories than, say, the trillion dollar war that continues to rage on with no end in sight or a collapsing economy. Like Glenn says, people care about the petty stuff because the media loves to tell themselves that they do.

New Hampshire Getting Down To Business

On April 16th the New Hampshire House of Representatives will vote on HR 24, a resolution calling for the U.S. House of Representatives to open impeachment hearings on bush.

If the resolution passes it will trigger section 603 of Jefferson’s Manual on Parliamentary Practice and Rules of the House of Representatives which gives “high privilege” to the matter. This has never been done before. But when the lower house of a state legislature acts in this way, it is not just a symbol; it’s historic. It will also be momentous. It will demand national attention for what it will stimulate within the halls of Congress and in the media.

Finally, efforts to impeach the Bush/Cheney gang will make a difference, the voice of the people will be heard.

You can help New Hampshire Representative Betty Hall succeed in this effort. Sign on to the petition that urges her colleagues to vote in favor of the resolution. Send an email of support to i.support.hr24@gmail.com and add your voice to the growing number of Americans seeking justice for the law breaking committed by this administration. No one is above the law in the United States. It is time to hold Bush and Cheney accountable.

The Vice President

It may or may not be a bit premature to look at possible running mates for the democratic candidates for president, but I've compiled a list of the possible choices facing Obama and Clinton.

Barack Obama:

Delaware Senator Joe Biden

Pro: He has a long record on national security and foreign policy and is a member of a key demographic group—Catholics. His attacks on Rudy Giuliani proved he can be an affable attack dog, a rare skill.

Con: Gaffe-prone and perhaps too fond of the klieg lights. He’s not accustomed to being anybody's
number two. Besides, he already has a good job.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson

Pro: He carries Cabinet-level and national security experience. As the governor of a battleground state and a member of key demographic group—Hispanics—Richardson brings much to the ticket. Then there is his important recent endorsement, delivered at a crucial time.

Con: Prone to sloppy speech. At times, he’s been a weak debater. And questions about his '04 "vetting" remain.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg

Pro: Executive and private sector experience. As a former Republican, he might make the ticket appear more ideologically balanced. Best of all, he brings infinite resources.

Con: Very liberal on social issues. Paired with Obama, he creates the Archie Bunker nightmare ticket: African-American and Jew. Obama doesn't need
the money.

Former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer

Pro: A former six-term House member, he served on the 9/11 Commission. Pro-life.

Con: Pro-life.

Former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn

Pro: He has a solid national security record and a reputation as a moderate who can work across the aisle. Also, he’s a Southerner with gravitas.

Con: He's 70 and disliked by gay rights groups.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine

Pro: He is comfortable talking about faith and has youth and energy on his side. An early Obama backer from a battleground state.

Con: Looks even younger than he is. No national security experience.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano

Pro: Executive experience and a proven statewide winner. A Westerner from McCain's home state, she could boost the ticket there.

Con: No national security experience.

Retired General Colin Powell

Pro: National security credentials.

Con: Backed and promoted Iraq war.

Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner

Pro: Private sector and executive experience in a key state. Shares Obama's message of change and has won votes in rural areas.

Con: Currently running for Senate. No national security experience.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb

Pro: A decorated war veteran and former Republican from a key state, he looks perfect on paper.

Con: Blunt and unpredictable, he might be a reluctant campaigner.

Former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle

Pro: A key Obama advisor from the start of his campaign, he is a veteran Washington insider who knows how to win in a red state environment.

Con: He is a veteran Washington insider who is now a lobbyist. Not cut out to be an attack dog.

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

Pro: Smart, tough, vetted. Could bring her own alienated supporters back to Obama and unite the party.

Con: As divisive a pol as exists in American politics. There is bad blood between the candidates, in no small part because she has suggested Obama is unready to lead.


Hillary Rodham Clinton:

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland

Pro: A popular figure in a key state, he helped deliver Ohio for Clinton. His Christian ministerial background could bridge God gap for Democrats.

Con: No national security experience.

Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack

Pro: A Midwesterner with a compelling personal story.

Con: Not an electric speaker. Might not be able to deliver Iowa.

Indiana Senator Evan Bayh

Pro: VP from central casting. He can point to executive and foreign policy experience.

Con: Indiana’s not a swing state. He’s a bit bland, not to mention inexperienced as an attack dog.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama

Pro: Could bring young and African-American backers, who are angry at Clinton, back into the fold. Popular with independents.

Con: They've said nasty things about each other. Any path to the nomination runs right through him.

Florida Senator Bill Nelson

Pro: A folksy moderate from a key electoral battleground.

Con: Not well-known outside his home state, which isn't well-regarded nationally after recent election debacles.

Retired General Wes Clark

Pro: Military experience. A tireless campaigner for Clinton who is familiar with the rigors of the presidential campaign trail.

Con: Ran a rocky 2004 campaign.

Hey, here's something rather interesting. Another possible choice for Hillary's VP could be Bill Clinton. There is no laws that I know that would prevent this from happening. Better yet, Obama and Bill as the democratic tag team.

Yeah right.

More bush Waste

A trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, and soon you're talking real money.

But when it comes to reporting on what the Bush war legacy has cost American taxpayers, the media have been shockingly indifferent to the highest run-up in military spending since World War II.

Even the devastating defense spending audit released Monday by the Government Accountability Office documenting the enormous waste in every single U.S. advanced weapons system failed to provoke the outrage it, and five equally scathing previous annual audits, deserved.

This is not about the waste of taxpayer dollars -- already pushing a trillion -- in funding the Iraq war, which, while reprehensible enough, pales in comparison to the big-ticket military systems purchased in the wake of 9/11. In the horror of that moment, the floodgates were lifted and the peace dividend promised with the end of the Cold War was washed away by a doubling of spending on ultra-complex military equipment originally designed to defeat a Soviet enemy that no longer exists, equipment that has no plausible connection with fighting stateless terrorists. Example: the $81-billion submarine pushed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, presumably to fight al-Qaida's navy.

That's the huge scandal the media and politicians from both parties have studiously avoided. But as the GAO's authoritative audit details, the costs are astronomical. The explosion of spending on expensive weaponry after 9/11 had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of that day. The high-tech planes and ships commissioned for trillions of dollars to defeat an enemy with no navy, air force or army, and using $3 knives as its weapons arsenal, were gifts to the military-industrial complex that will go on giving for decades to come.

The Iraq war may end someday, but rest assured that major weapons systems, once commissioned, have a life-support system unmatched in any other sector of public spending. Rarely does the plug get pulled on even the most irrelevant and expensive war toy. Not while both Democratic and Republican politicians feed at the same trough, and when so much is at stake in the way of jobs and profit.

Just how expensive and wasteful this is was marked in the GAO's audit: "Since 2000, the Department of Defense (DOD) has roughly doubled its planned investment in new systems from $790 billion to $1.6 trillion in 2007, but acquisition outcomes in terms of cost and schedule have not improved." Pentagon cost overruns, always a huge problem, have mushroomed. As the GAO reported, "Total acquisition costs for major defense programs in the fiscal year 2007 portfolio have increased 26 percent from first estimates, compared with 6 percent in 2000."

I know eyes glaze when government budgets are discussed, but keep in mind that defense spending accounts for more than half of all the federal government's discretionary spending. In short, funding for all the other stuff we argue about -- science research, education, Arabic translators, insuring uninsured children -- is minor compared to the waste on these military boondoggles that go unexamined.

Yet nothing else the federal government does involves such waste because we are talking about weapons systems shrouded in secrecy and protected from unwelcome scrutiny by the Teflon coating of "national defense." Credit the GAO for providing a rare glimpse into the most egregious waste of taxpayer dollars, concluding in its exhaustive, 205-page report:

"Of the 72 programs GAO assessed this year, none of them had proceeded through system development meeting the best-practice standards for mature technologies, stable design, or mature production processes by critical junctures of the program, each of which are essential for achieving planned cost, schedule, and performance outcomes."

That's a grade of zero for every major weapons system. Let's take just one, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a program estimated to be worth $300 billion in sales to its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, the nation's biggest defense contractor and most generous donor to lobbyists and politicians' campaigns. The program to build what Lockheed boasts is "the most complex fighter ever built" is also the most expensive, with estimated acquisition costs having increased a whopping $55 billion in just the last three years.

Lockheed need not worry about future profits, because the procurement schedule on this troubled plane has been stretched out to the year 2034. As the GAO says, "currently unproven processes and a lack of flight testing could mean future changes to design and manufacturing processes." Hey, no problem, Lockheed will just add that to the taxpayer tab. Maybe by 2034, the plane will be ready to go take out Osama bin Laden.

Or not.

Originally published here.

Clinton's Sour Grapes

"It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended," one superdelegate said.

According to those at the meeting, Clinton - who flew in from Chicago with bags under his eyes - was classic old Bill at first, charming and making small talk with the 15 or so delegates who gathered in a room behind the convention stage.

But as the group moved together for the perfunctory photo, Rachel Binah, a former Richardson delegate who now supports Hillary Clinton, told Bill how "sorry" she was to have heard former Clinton campaign manager James Carville call Richardson a "Judas" for backing Obama.

It was as if someone pulled the pin from a grenade.

"Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that," a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted.

The former president then went on a tirade that ran from the media's unfair treatment of Hillary to questions about the fairness of the votes in state caucuses that voted for Obama. It ended with him asking delegates to imagine what the reaction would be if Obama was trailing by just 1 percent and people were telling him to drop out.

UPDATE:

Turning toward the much more classy Richardson, look at how he addressed being called "Judas" by Clintonista James Carville. (WaPo):

My recent endorsement of Barack Obama for president has been the subject of much discussion and consternation -- particularly among supporters of Hillary Clinton.

Led by political commentator James Carville, who makes a living by being confrontational and provocative, Clinton supporters have speculated about events surrounding this endorsement and engaged in personal attacks and insults.

While I certainly will not stoop to the low level of Mr. Carville, I feel compelled to defend myself against character assassination and baseless allegations.

Carville has made it very clear that this is a personal attack -- driven by his own sense of what constitutes loyalty. It is this kind of political venom that I anticipated from certain Clinton supporters and I campaigned against in my own run for president.

I repeatedly urged Democrats to stop attacking each other personally and even offered a DNC resolution calling for a positive campaign based on the issues. I was evenhanded in my efforts. In fact, my intervention in a debate during a particularly heated exchange was seen by numerous commentators as an attempt to defend Sen. Clinton against the barbs of Sens. Obama and John Edwards.

As I have pointed out many times, and most pointedly when I endorsed Sen. Obama, the campaign has been too negative, and we Democrats need to calm the rhetoric and personal attacks so we can come together as a party to defeat the Republicans.

More than anything, to repair the damage done at home and abroad, we must unite as a country. I endorsed Sen. Obama because I believe he has the judgment, temperament and background to bridge our divisions as a nation and make America strong at home and respected in the world again.

This was a difficult, even painful, decision. My affection and respect for the Clintons run deep. I do indeed owe President Clinton for the extraordinary opportunities he gave me to serve him and this country. And nobody worked harder for him or served him more loyally, during some very difficult times, than I did.

Carville and others say that I owe President Clinton's wife my endorsement because he gave me two jobs. Would someone who worked for Carville then owe his wife, Mary Matalin, similar loyalty in her professional pursuits? Do the people now attacking me recall that I ran for president, albeit unsuccessfully, against Sen. Clinton? Was that also an act of disloyalty?

And while I was truly torn for weeks about this decision, and seriously contemplated endorsing Sen. Clinton, I never told anyone, including President Clinton, that I would do so. Those who say I did are misinformed or worse.

As for Mr. Carville's assertions that I did not return President Clinton's calls: I was on vacation in Antigua with my wife for a week and did not receive notice of any calls from the president. I, of course, called Sen. Clinton prior to my endorsement of Sen. Obama. It was a difficult and heated discussion, the details of which I will not share here.

I do not believe that the truth will keep Carville and others from attacking me. I can only say that we need to move on from the politics of personal insult and attacks. That era, personified by Carville and his ilk, has passed and I believe we must end the rancor and partisanship that has mired Washington in gridlock. In my view, Sen. Obama represents our best hope of replacing division with unity. That is why, out of loyalty to my country, I endorse him for president.

Originally posted here.