And, yes, I DO take it personally: 07/02/2006 - 07/09/2006
Mandy: Great blog!
Mark: Thanks to all the contributors on this blog. When I want to get information on the events that really matter, I come here.
Penny: I'm glad I found your blog (from a comment on Think Progress), it's comprehensive and very insightful.
Eric: Nice site....I enjoyed it and will be back.
nora kelly: I enjoy your site. Keep it up! I particularly like your insights on Latin America.
Alison: Loquacious as ever with a touch of elegance -- & right on target as usual!
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
i'm not reed hundt's biggest fan... he tends to be quite a bit more establishmentarian than suits me... however, this particular perspective on karl rove is, imho, dead on...
General Rove has doubtlessly formulated his fall strategy. When we read about plots to attack the tunnels of New York, we are seeing that strategy at work.
[...]
What, then, lies ahead in the general's strategy? We can be sure of two points. First, he has a cunning, creative, and far-reaching strategy that applies to 2006 and also sets the stage for 2008, when the general will play the principal role in selecting the R's candidate. Second, that strategy is aggressive, risky, and dangerous for Americans and their progeny.
We know, for instance, that running up an enormous deficit, burning up the atmosphere, bogging Americans down in an unwinnable war for unstated goals in Iraq, and tampering with voting (see New Hampshire phone jamming, Florida and Ohio conniving over voting machines, organized attacks on registration, and so on) are just some of the tactics tolerated, if not embraced, by the general in the past.
when everything finally comes out - and it will, eventually - we will all be astounded at the pure evil embodied by karl rove... i've been astounded for quite some time and i'm sure i don't even know the half of it...
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"What's happening to Lieberman can only be described as a liberal inquisition," writes Brooks. "Whether you agree with him or not, he is transparently the most kind-hearted and well-intentioned of men. But over the past few years he has been subjected to a vituperation campaign that only experts in moral manias and mob psychology are really fit to explain."
"I can't reproduce the typical assaults that have been directed at him over the Internet, because they are so laced with profanity and ugliness, but they are ginned up by ideological masseurs who salve their followers' psychic wounds by arousing their rage at objects of mutual hate," Brooks adds.
Brooks singles out the netroots as helping to lead the brigade.
the recent assault on the nyt, initiated by karl rove with gasoline poured on by bush, cheney, and snow, is only a precursor to an equally determined attack on the blogosphere... brooks is a stalking horse, testing the waters for the full-scale blitz sure to follow...
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The best thing the United States can do now is to support the push for a recount and to refrain from calling on Mr. López Obrador to concede. Then, no matter who finally wins the election, the White House should renegotiate Nafta, allowing Mexico to set its own policy in support of its rural economy. If the Bush administration does otherwise, it might help begin yet another season of Mexican upheaval — just as the Aztecs might have predicted.
Juan Huerta, 55, who works at a newsstand near a luxury department store, said he thought that the election was riddled with fraud. Mr. Huerta said he tried to cast a ballot for Mr. López Obrador, but was told that rain had soaked all the ballots. "This is a fraud against the people," he said.
i don't give a flying fig how transparent the election was, make it really clean and order a recount...
Advisers to Mr. López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, said he would challenge the results in one-third of the 130,000 polling places, focusing on sites with many null votes or where his party did not have representatives to oversee the count.
The advisers acknowledged that the errors found in each ballot box opened in the final count were small, but argued that together they could add up to enough votes to change the result.
"If they recount the votes and Calderón wins by one vote, then it ends," said Mayor-Elect Marcelo Ebrard of Mexico City, a close adviser to Mr. López Obrador. "If they don't count the votes, there will always be a doubt."
If the court does not order a recount, Mr. López Obrador left little doubt at a news conference on Thursday that he was considering mass marches as a next step. "It's our right," he said.
for god's sake, don't make the same mistake the u.s. did in 2000... do it right... order a recount...
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"It didn't say we couldn't have done — couldn't have made that decision, see?" Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Chicago. "They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo — whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made."
Mr. Bush's remarks put a favorable spin on a ruling that has been widely interpreted as a rebuke of the administration's policies in the war on terror. The court, ruled broadly last week in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that military commissions were unauthorized by statute and violated international law.
the court didn't tacitly approve shit, george... there's nothing whatsoever in the ruling that commented on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of guantánamo cuz that WASN'T the issue... spinspinspinspinspinspinspinspinspin... when you're at the pearly gates having to account for your life, spin ain't gonna even get you to first base...
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105F, lots of traffic, people in hot pursuit of their addictions, and the smell of money everywhere... it's not very uplifting to see after the long drive down through amazing, barren, rugged, and twisted landscapes... vegas is the original over-the-topville and, don't forget, what happens here stays here...
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off to lost wages (las vegas) this weekend for a mini-family reunion... light to possibly non-existent posting from this particular burnt-out bushco torture victim...
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Through the looking glass with George and the R's - even the worst news is to their favor
once upon a time (although i'm rapidly forgetting when), bad news used to be bad news... at the rate we're going, bush and cheney could be indicted by fitz and it would still be claimed as in some way vindicating or supporting bushco's criminal behavior...
The widespread media assumption that all of these political landmines for the GOP -- the Supreme Court decision, an extraordinarily unpopular president, Gen. George Casey planning for troop withdrawal from Iraq even as Republicans blast Democrats who are doing the same for wanting to "cut and run," North Korea's missile tests, continued threats from Al Qaeda -- are actually opportunities for Republicans or trouble for Democrats seems to rest in large part on the assumption that security issues automatically redound to the Republicans' benefit.
That's why, whenever Osama bin Laden surfaces with a new video- or audio-taped statement, media pundits are quick to declare that the reminder of the threat of terrorism is a political boon to the GOP -- instead of portraying it as a reminder that the Bush administration has failed to capture him nearly five years after the September 11, 2001, attacks. That's why the media portray a Senate debate in which every Republican except one endorses an unpopular president's unpopular plan to remain indefinitely in an unpopular war as a benefit to Republicans. That's why whenever there is a new disclosure of a Bush administration effort to spy on Americans, the media portray Democratic concern over possible trampling of civil liberties and constitutional rights as political suicide.
i'm having a great deal of difficulty grasping that i'm living in the same country i was living in 10 years ago, or even 6 years ago, or even, for that matter, LAST YEAR...
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But Bush predicted that Republicans would keep their majorities in the House and Senate, "Because we're right on winning this war on terror, and we've got a good economic record," he said. "People are working under the leadership of the Bush administration and the Congress."
When it comes to the most controversial single decision of his presidency -- invading Iraq -- the president told King he would make the same choice again, even knowing that Saddam Hussein's regime did not have weapons of mass destruction.
"We removed a tyrant," Bush said. "He was an enemy of the United States who harbored terrorists and who had the capacity, at the very minimum, to make weapons of mass destruction. And he was a true threat."
notice that he's no longer even suggesting that saddam had wmd, despite santorum's recent desperate claims to the contrary... 'course, i wouldn't put it past someone to PLANT them there to be discovered a little bit closer in to election time...
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i didn't watch the debate last night nor did i have any intention of doing so... and, from the reports i have read, the anger and venom that poured forth from lieberman's mouth and his accompanying body language sealed his own doom as an arrogant incumbent outraged at being challenged - ON ANYTHING - not unlike tom delay... we all know that there are more of those lurking about who haven't yet been unmasked as effectively as lieberman has and those are the people who are killing any hopes for reclaiming our country in the name of the principles on which we were founded... steve clemons has a recommended response to such poseurs...
Opposing Lieberman has nothing to do with being "anti-war", it has everything to do with being "anti-Iraq War" and trying to prevent the same kind of dangerous calculus from being followed in the future. If Lieberman helps empower thinking so potentially dangerous to American national security interests, he should be purged from the party.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."
and such a shame, too, because the u.s. armed forces has been, for a very long time, the national model of racial tolerance and equality...
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The actions of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seem intended to create a failed state in Gaza and the West Bank, thus rendering the Israeli claim that "we have no one to talk to" a self-fulfilling prophecy and allowing Israel to continue with its unilateral, annexationist policies, free of the need to even pretend to negotiate.
just one more thing - not unlike north korea - that our obsessions with iraq and seemingly endless domestic political crises, although both certainly critical, keep us from attending to properly...
I think ignoring it is a big mistake. It is part of what got the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon bombed, and it came into the Fallujah crisis in Iraq in 2004. A lot of Iraqis think of US troops in their country as essentially Israelis and call them al-yahud, "the Jews." Like it or not, this conflict helps shape our lives and our image in the world. I know that rightwing Zionists are typically ruthless in trying to squelch any discussion of the topic, and I've had lots of readers write me that they are afraid of being labelled "anti-Semites" for speaking out. But if you aren't a bigot, why be afraid of being called one? The charge would be self-evidently untrue to anyone who knew you, and why should we care what people think of us, who don't know us? The irony is that the virulence of the racism of most rightwing Zionists toward Arabs is mind-blowing.
even with the small amount of traffic on this blog, i've already been accused of anti-semitism for posting on the entirely disproportionate israeli attacks in gaza seemingly targeted toward toppling the government... but, i believe juan cole is absolutely correct... we may be continuing to fuel the jihadist fires by staying in iraq, but it's the arab-israeli problem that's the underlying problem...
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i keep looking for something positive to post and i'm not finding anything... bush is still in office... rove still has a security clearance... rumsfeld is still secdef... cheney is still the prince of darkness... iraq is still a disaster... amlo appears to have lost in mexico... we're still being spyed on... maybe i'm not looking hard enough... anybody else got any ideas...?
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yeah, as the conquering force, we wrote the rule that they had to sign... the unbridled arrogance of conquest...
Following a recent string of alleged atrocities by U.S. troops against Iraqi civilians, leaders from across Iraq's political spectrum called Wednesday for a review of the U.S.-drafted law that prevents prosecution of coalition forces in Iraqi courts.
it's all of a piece with threatening other countries to cut off aid and assistance unless they agree to grant immunity to american troops from prosecution in the international criminal court...
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Take a stand for progressive, people-powered candidates
and forget the rest of 'em...
It is high time the folks who make up the base of the Democratic Party took a page from the playbook of the Republican Right and backed candidates willing to stand up for their values, rather than wasting their money, time and votes on those who won't.
yes, hillary, i'm talking about YOU... and, yes, joe, i'm talking about YOU...
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Hold it. The first report was correct, it was six.
Nix that. It was five.
OK, this time we've got it -- it was six after all.
Now it's seven.
The Russians and South Koreans say there were 10.
That was the -- dare I call it the Chinese fire drill -- that unfolded at the White House on the day North Korea shot a baker's half-dozen missiles in our general direction.
this keystone kops moment brought to you by the white house and the president of the united states...
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haass makes it sound like all these crises just suddenly popped up out of nowhere...
"I am hard-pressed to think of any other moment in modern times where there have been so many challenges facing this country simultaneously," said Richard N. Haass, a former senior Bush administration official who heads the Council on Foreign Relations. "The danger is that Mr. Bush will hand over a White House to a successor that will face a far messier world, with far fewer resources left to cope with it."
moisés naím, editor of foreign policy magazine has a different take...
"This is a distracted government that has to take care of too many things at the same time and has been consumed by the war on Iraq."
and, as per usual, the wh tries to spin their way out of it...
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said in an interview yesterday that such criticism is misplaced, adding that victory in Iraq is crucial to success in fighting terrorists and in creating a new democracy that could serve as a beacon to other Middle Eastern countries. "Is it a major investment? Yes," he said. "The stakes are high [in Iraq], but we think the rewards are commensurate to the effort, and the consequences of lack of success are sobering."
Hadley agreed that there are "a lot of issues in motion right now" on the international front. "In some sense, it was destined to be, because we have a president that wants to take on the big issues and see if he could solve them on his watch.
"the consequences of lack of success are sobering...????" the situation we find ourselves in today is entirely the responsibility of this criminal administration and the consequences to the nation have been piling up at a breathtaking rate ever since the supreme court ratified the creeping coup d'etat on 12 december 2000...
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With tallies taken from about 93 percent of the polling places, the electoral authorities reported that the count had tilted toward the leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had 36 percent of the vote, while the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón, had 35 percent.
Calderón, a free-trade booster from outgoing President Vicente Fox's conservative National Action Party, led the populist Andres Manuel López Obrador by 100th of a percentage point after 97.7 percent of polling places have been counted Thursday morning.
The process of counting ballots begins today, Wednesday, at the local district offices. The winner, according to IFE officials, could be announced before Sunday. But the process could require more time, depending on the number of ballots counted by hand.
Regional officials will first review tally sheets, computer results and polling data from over 130,000 polling areas. If there are formal complaints about specific areas, they will open sealed ballot packets and do hand counts. The good news is Mexico's next president won't take office until Dec. 1, and the IFE is not required to legally certify the election until Sept. 6. Everyone is counseling calm.
The U.S. media, however, have seized upon the Calderon 1 percent lead number and begun coronation proceedings. They've implied that it's all over, except "firebrand" Lopez Obrador and his street mobs won't concede. This is highly irresponsible.
The U.S. media should butt out of the Mexican election until it can get its facts straight on the actual process and the historical context of Mexico's evolving democracy.
i just hope and pray that there are enough observers keeping an eye on things and that the ife (mexico's federal electoral institute) has enough integrity to keep things clean... even then, the odds that some rioting and violence will break out are high...
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Keeping the war on terror alive: Robert Parry 'splains it for you
cuz, god forbid, we should ever WIN it...
Just nine days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, George W. Bush defined victory in the “war on terror” as the defeat of al-Qaeda and “every terrorist group of global reach.” But now with almost no debate, the Bush administration has expanded those ambitious goals by adding the elimination of potential “homegrown terrorists.”
This mission creep was reflected in several recent developments, such as the arrest of seven young black men in Miami for agreeing to collaborate with an FBI agent posing as an al-Qaeda operative and the CIA’s shutting down of a special unit that has been dedicated to tracking al-Qaeda for the past decade.
[...]
Yet, rather than take this declining capability of al-Qaeda to conduct direct attacks on the West as a sign of victory – or as an indication that the 9/11 attacks were a case of lax U.S. defenses letting al-Qaeda get in a lucky punch – the Bush administration has redrawn the parameters of the potential threat.
“We’ve already seen this new face in terrorism in Madrid, London and Toronto,” said FBI Director Robert Mueller in a speech to the City Club in Cleveland. “They were persons who came to view their country as the enemy.”
Mueller’s comments also could have applied to the Miami Seven case, although some critics see it more as an example of the administration manufacturing a “homegrown” threat to justify Bush’s continuation of extraordinary presidential powers and further encroachments on American constitutional rights.
i keep reading comments from progressive bloggers and pundits that claim the bush administration is falling apart and/or is on its last legs... i don't buy that for a second... they're moving steadlily forward, dismantling the u.s. constitution and amassing more power every single day... hamdan vs. rumsfeld hasn't even broken their stride...
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Shays, R-4, sought the subpoena after the Pentagon refused to answer questions regarding allegations that an Army whistleblower faced retaliation for discussing abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.
Shays, chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, is investigating allegations made by Army Spec. Samuel Provance that his attempts to provide information to investigators about prison abuses were rebuffed and that he then was retaliated against for providing unclassified information to the media.
"The bottom line is it's critical that our oversight inquiries be taken seriously by executive branch departments and that we get timely access to the information we need to do our job," Shays said.
it's about goddam time the accountability for abu ghraib started moving up the chain of command cuz that's precisely where it belongs... this may be a good start and, on the other hand...
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and, no, we're not talking about china, uzbekistan, somalia, or north korea...
Immigration: The physical abuse and poor detention conditions many non-citizens face when they attempt to enter the U.S., the failure of U.S. immigration law to adequately protect refugees, asylum seekers and immigrant families and respect their right to due process, and discrimination against migrant workers;
Hurricane Katrina: The racially discriminatory evacuation of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and discriminatory policies in the hurricane's aftermath that have restricted residents' right to vote, ability to participate in the rebuilding process and access to basic necessities;
Domestic Use of Torture: The failure of the government to prosecute Jon Burge, a Chicago police officer implicated in a torture scandal that advocates have labeled the "Abu Ghraib in the United States," despite several federal investigations that conclusively found that the city's police department routinely tortured suspects;
Juvenile Justice: The sentencing of youth and teens to life in prison without the possibility of parole; and
Prison conditions within the United States, such as shackling women prisoners during childbirth, limitations on prisoners' access to courts, lack of access to adequate health care, rape and discrimination against minorities that violate international human rights standards.
[A] coalition of 142 U.S.-based non-profits and organizations and 32 individuals say they have filed what they believe is the most comprehensive review of human rights violations in the United States ever produced.
The 465-page "shadow report" was assembled for the United Nation's Human Rights Committee as part of its review of U.S. human rights abuses later this month, a routine review that occurs every four years for countries that have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Mexico's leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had an early, narrow lead over his conservative rival on Wednesday in a recount of a contested election.
Results on display at the Federal Electoral Institute showed Lopez Obrador had 37.05 percent of the vote with results in from 36.6 percent of polling stations. Ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon was second with 34.38 percent.
It was too soon to say whether the trend would hold. Preliminary results earlier this week from Sunday's election gave Calderon a lead of about 0.6 percentage points over Lopez Obrador.
if anybody could make an argument for sealing the borders and deporting all the foreigners back to their own soil, it would be the native americans... unfortunately, that's still the big, smelly, shit-covered elephant in the living room of u.s. history, an elephant which, btw, we're still feeding and that's still crapping all over the place...
At risk are programs that work with talented middle school and high school youth and college undergraduates. Those programs helped the U [of Minnesota] graduate more than 100 Indian physicians since 1990, more than all but one other American university.
[...]
[University of Minnesota Medical School Dean Deborah] Powell credits the program for the fact that 17 of the 200 students who start medical school on the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses this fall are Indians. Those students come from across the nation, drawn by the opportunity to work on reservations, study with Indian doctors and take classes dealing with issues such as how medicine intersects with traditional healing practices.
but, hey... when the social contract gets cancelled, nobody gets spared... besides, if you can't cut it on your own, it probably means that you're no damn good, lazy, and ignorant...
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how very interesting... all the so-called "experts" have been predicting that calderón's lead would remain the proportionally the same as additional ballots were counted...
Emotions here intensified Tuesday as Mexico's electoral commission counted additional ballots, shrinking the lead of López Obrador's opponent, Felipe Calderón, from 400,000 votes, or 1 percent, to 257,000 votes, or 0.64 percent. López Obrador's supporters have also reacted emotionally as the populist candidate and his top aides have outlined a growing list of alleged election law violations. No large demonstrations have been held yet, apparently because López Obrador's supporters are waiting for a signal from him and because they want to see the results of an official count that begins Wednesday.
i've been thinking that there's going to be trouble no matter how the final count ends up if calderón is declared the winner... mexico's poor see amlo as someone who would finally do something about their grinding poverty and the enormous gap between rich and poor... it could be ugly...
Emilio Serrano, a federal legislator from the candidate's Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, said in an interview that violence is possible if the vote-tampering allegations are proved.
"We are not afraid to die in the fight," Serrano said. "We in the public are tired of the lies and the abuses, which have been demonstrated over the length of our history."
mexico may have the largest economy in latin america but a mind-boggling share of the country's wealth is in very few hands... you can only make people eat dirt for so long before they're going to fight back... immigration to the u.s. has been mexico's safety valve for years... i've long maintained that if the borders were truly sealed, there would be revolution in mexico within less than a year... maybe it's not going to take sealing the borders... unlike the u.s. and florida 2000, if the mexican people feel their election was stolen, they're not going to sit by, wring their hands, and take it...
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When [...] people talk of patriotism, of love of country, of pride in being American, what actually happens is this: very rich and deep and, above all, specific feelings for family and friends and neighborhoods, for places they vacationed as children and hung out as teenagers, places where they courted their wives and husbands, places where they lost them too -- all the places they belong to -- the particular smell of a school hallway, the mood of an empty intersection at the center of town, when you stop at the traffic light, just before dawn...
my attachments are certainly to people, places, and experiences, and are suffused with many and complex emotions... i am fortunate to have a number of these attachments, not only throughout the u.s. but also in various other places around the world... i find i tend to use the names of countries (or states, or cities) more as place descriptors and locators than evocations of loyalty, patriotism, or nationality... and isn't that the way it should be...?
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North Korea launched a long-range Taepodong-2 missile early Wednesday in an apparently unsuccessful test that failed in flight, a senior State Department official said.
North Korea also tested at least two smaller missiles, U.S. sources told CNN.
[UPDATE]
correction... missile(S), as in more than one...
North Korea tested at least two missiles early Wednesday but has not fired the long-range Taepodong-2 rocket Western observers suspect has been readied for launch, U.S. sources told CNN.
well, THIS oughta make up for it being a slow news day...
The reclusive communist state launched the missile at 3:32 a.m., or 2:32 p.m. Tuesday EDT, and it crashed into the Sea of Japan several minutes later, public broadcaster NHK reported.
that was approximately 2 hours ago, as it's now 1:30 p.m. PDT... hurry up, george/condi/rummy/dick/tony, let's hear some sabre-rattling...
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why, if the 4th of july is SO IMPORTANT to our country, and why, if we REALLY LOVE america, and why, if we REALLY WANT to make a special holiday out of it, aren't the stores closed...?
ok, full disclosure time... i took these on may 5 in sofia, bulgaria... i was working in the office on the 16th floor of the ngk building near the national cultural center when i suddenly heard loud explosions... i ran to the window just in time to capture a few shots...
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unless i missed it, there's not a word in the nyt or the wapo about murray waas' damning piece in the national journal about bush telling cheney to disclose classified intelligence that would defend the administration and discredit joseph wilson...
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Teams of lawyers are girding for a massive challenge of the results, threatening a crisis reminiscent of the disputed 2000 U.S. presidential election. Legal experts and campaign strategists here say the winner of Sunday's ballot might not be officially declared for up to two months.
A preliminary, uncertified count by Mexico's electoral authority shows Calderón with 36.38 percent of the vote and López Obrador with 35.34 percent. But the electoral authority, which will begin its official count on Wednesday, will eventually cede control of the contest to a special elections court.
PAN and calderón represent the holders of the real power in mexico - the super-rich... they are also the ones backed by the super-rich and the advocates of unfettered corporatocracy in the u.s... given the level of corruption still rampant in mexico, what are the chances the outcome will be unsullied...? let's pray that THEIR election doesn't get stolen the way ours was...
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The real meaning of the Declaration of Independence
this 4th of july, let us remember that our country and its principles are not synonomous with our government...
In celebration of the Fourth of July there will be many speeches about the young people who "died for their country." But those who gave their lives did not, as they were led to believe, die for their country; they died for their government. The distinction between country and government is at the heart of the Declaration of Independence, which will be referred to again and again on July 4, but without attention to its meaning.
The Declaration of Independence is the fundamental document of democracy. It says governments are artificial creations, established by the people, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," and charged by the people to ensure the equal right of all to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Furthermore, as the Declaration says, "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it." It is the country that is primary--the people, the ideals of the sanctity of human life and the promotion of liberty.
[...]
Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism that has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade-- some call it "globalization"--should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity? Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.
How Would a Patriot Act? is one man’s story of being galvanized into action to defend America’s founding principles, and a reasoned argument for what must be done. Greenwald’s penetrating words should inspire a nation to defend the Constitution from a president who secretly bestowed upon himself the powers of a monarch. If we are to remain a constitutional republic, Greenwald writes, we cannot abide radical theories of executive power, which are transforming the very core of our national character, and moving us from democracy toward despotism. This is not hyperbole. This is the crisis all Americans—liberals and conservatives--now face.
yes, it IS a crisis, an urgent one, and the sooner that fact dawns on the american people, the sooner we will be able to move back to our founding principles...
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This Independence Day, let us remember, we can't give to others what we are losing for ourselves
in the summer, early mornings in the high desert are a thing of beauty - cool to almost chilly, birds singing everywhere, the pungent smell of sage in the air, wispy clouds catching the sun's first rays, tiny droplets of dew on the grass (yeah, i know, GRASS in the high desert, but, hey, it's a suburb, ok!)... i'm enjoying the scene and then i open up the newspaper lying in the driveway... here's what i see...
i'm struck by the photo of someone who is probably a very decent young man, a local, small town boy, doing something he takes pride in, and i'm also struck by the headline, which is a lie... i seriously wish it wasn't a lie... it certainly isn't a lie from the newspaper's point of view and neither is it a lie from the young man's point of view, but, lie it is... the united states went to iraq on a lie and we're staying there on a lie... we are told we are there to give freedom and democracy to the iraqi people but that's not the truth...
riverbend, the young woman behind the weblog, baghdad burning, helps us take a look at the reality in iraq, the reality that the local newspaper and most of my fellow citizens, even those disapproving of the war, don't want to believe... her perspective on the capture and killing of zarqawi sums it all up...
So 'Zarqawi' is finally dead. [...] I didn't bother with the pictures and film they showed of him because I, personally, have been saturated with images of broken, bleeding bodies.
The reactions have been different. There's a general consensus amongst family and friends that he won't be missed, whoever he is. There is also doubt- who was he really? Did he even exist? Was he truly the huge terror the Americans made him out to be? When did he actually die? People swear he was dead back in 2003… The timing is extremely suspicious: just when people were getting really fed up with the useless Iraqi government, Zarqawi is killed and Maliki is hailed the victorious leader of the occupied world! (And no- Iraqis aren't celebrating in the streets- worries over electricity, water, death squads, tests, corpses and extremists in high places prevail right now.)
I've been listening to reactions- mostly from pro-war politicians and the naïveté they reveal is astounding. Maliki (the current Iraqi PM) was almost giddy as he made the news public (he had even gone the extra mile and shaved!). Do they really believe it will end the resistance against occupation? As long as foreign troops are in Iraq, resistance or 'insurgency' will continue- why is that SO difficult to understand? How is that concept a foreign one?
"A new day for Iraqis" is the current theme of the Iraqi puppet government and the Americans. Like it was "A New Day for Iraqis" on April 9, 2003 . And it was "A New Day for Iraqis" when they killed Oday and Qusay. Another "New Day for Iraqis" when they caught Saddam. More "New Day" when they drafted the constitution… I'm beginning to think it's like one of those questions they give you on IQ tests: If 'New' is equal to 'More' and 'Day' is equal to 'Suffering', what does "New Day for Iraqis" mean?
How do I feel? To hell with Zarqawi (or Zayrkawi as Bush calls him). He was an American creation- he came along with them- they don't need him anymore, apparently. His influence was greatly exaggerated but he was the justification for every single family they killed through military strikes and troops. It was WMD at first, then it was Saddam, then it was Zarqawi. Who will it be now? Who will be the new excuse for killing and detaining Iraqis? Or is it that an excuse is no longer needed- they have freedom to do what they want. The slaughter in Haditha months ago proved that. "They don't need him anymore," our elderly neighbor waved the news away like he was shooing flies, "They have fifty Zarqawis in government."
So now that Zarqawi is dead, and because according to Bush and our Iraqi puppets he was behind so much of Iraq's misery- things should get better, right? The car bombs should lessen, the ethnic cleansing will come to a halt, military strikes and sieges will die down… That's what we were promised, wasn't it? That sounds good to me. Now- who do they have to kill to stop the Ministry of Interior death squads, and trigger-happy foreign troops?
from the bottom of my heart, i want things to turn out well for the iraqis but, i think it's clear, it will not happen under u.s. occupation...
for now, let's all work to see if we can rescue our own democracy before it's too late...
On Oct. 29, 2004, just four days before the U.S. presidential election, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden released a videotape denouncing George W. Bush. Some Bush supporters quickly spun the diatribe as “Osama’s endorsement of John Kerry.” But behind the walls of the CIA, analysts had concluded the opposite: that bin-Laden was trying to help Bush gain a second term.
This stunning CIA disclosure is tucked away in a brief passage near the end of Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine, which draws heavily from CIA insiders.
the strategy was brilliant...
By demanding an American surrender, bin-Laden knew U.S. voters would instinctively want to fight. That way bin-Laden helped ensure that George W. Bush would stay in power, would continue his clumsy “war on terror” – and would drive thousands of new recruits into al-Qaeda’s welcoming arms.
and it's been successful beyond both men's wildest dreams... bush has his endless war on terror and osama has jihadists falling all over themselves to enlist in the cause... in light of the previous post about al qaeda turning in zarqawi in return for lessening the pressure on bin laden, it makes a certain kind of twisted sense, doesn't it...?
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if we made a deal to get our hands on zarqawi and money changed hands, i am disgusted beyond all measure... the only rationale i can come up with is that we aren't serious about capturing bin laden and that bush badly needed a bounce in the polls... what else could possibly make sense...?
i certainly hope to god this isn't true, cuz, if it is, it stinks to high heaven... my first reaction is that it may just qualify as the vilest political deed in history...
The woman, identified by La Repubblica as al-Zarqawi's first wife, said al-Qaida's top leadership reached a deal with U.S. intelligence because al-Zarqawi had become too powerful. She claimed Sunni tribes and Jordanian secret services mediated the deal.
[...]
"I think a secret pact was struck whose immediate goal was his death," she told the newspaper. "In return, the American troops promised to ease, at least momentarily, their hunt for bin Laden."
"Al-Qaida is currently especially worried with protecting its charismatic leader," she added.
there's no doubt about it, osama bin laden is george bush's best friend... as long as he's at large, the bush administration can continue to inflate the fear of terrorists and george can remain in the all-powerful position as commander-in-chief of the endless war on terror...
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Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004, interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.
the wh gang must have to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy just keeping their stories straight...
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Ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon declared Monday that his 370,000-vote lead in Mexico's closest-ever presidential race lead was insurmountable. But his leftist rival refused to concede and electoral officials said they would not declare a winner for days. Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador huddled in his apartment with close advisers, trying to determine how to challenge results that increasingly indicated a loss. He insisted in a television appearance that he had won, and did not rule out street protests.
this has the potential to get ugly...
[UPDATE]
my concerns about election-stealing may not be solely a figment of my fevered and paranoid imagination... greg palast at buzzflash has the troubling run-down...
Whether the US "War on Terror" lists will find a use in Sunday's election, we cannot know. But the use of American government resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open secret. The GOP's International Republican Institute has run training sessions for the PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the "National Endowment for Democracy."
it's a squeaker... i'm very concerned about opportunities for election fraud and the potential violence that might ensue... if u.s. elections are vulnerable to tampering, mexican elections are doubly so...
The two candidates were separated by fewer than 401,000 votes, with more than 36 million counted in a preliminary tally by electoral officials. The conservative, Felipe Calderon had 36.6 percent to leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's 35.5 percent, according to results from 91.4 percent of polling places.
i wish they'd STOP labeling amlo as a "leftist..." if a label simply MUST be attached, it would be "progressive..." calling him a leftist simply perpetuates the disinformation spread during the campaign by u.s. political consultants (like dick morris) attempting to link amlo to hugo chavez, a man amlo doesn't even KNOW... (you can't take your eye off u.s. media for one second...)
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As I documented at length this weekend, Michelle Malkin, John Hinderaker, Red State, David Horowitz and many others of that sort spent the weekend engaged in the most vicious and self-evidently misguided attacks on The New York Times based on a puff piece in this weekend's "Escapes" section. Because the article contained a photograph of Don Rumsfeld's vacation home, they insisted that this was reckless and even retaliatory-- i.e., done with the intent to enable Al Qaeda operatives and other assassins to murder Rumsfeld (as well as Dick Cheney), and that it was further evidence of the war being waged by the NYT and its employees on the Bush administration and the U.S.
[...]
The reprehensible lynch mob hysterics - Michelle Malkin, John Hinderaker, Red State, David Horowitz - spent the weekend screaming that the Times was guilty of gross recklessness and/or a deliberate intent to have Rumsfeld killed, by virtue of publication of this article. That bloodthirsty frenzy caused other bloggers to publish the home address and telephone number of Spillers and urged that other NYT editors and reporters be "hunted down." Other followers of Malkin and Hinderaker suggested to their readers that this was yet more evidence of the unpatriotic recklessness of the NYT.
i've refrained from commenting on all the hoo-hah, but i can hold back no longer...
yes, these bloggers and pundits may be vile, over-the-top, and inciting to violence, but look where the implicit permission for that is coming from... pick up the threads and follow them back to their source and you will find none other than karl rove, the individual who has done more than anyone to polarize this country... he has done it and continues to do it unchecked by plumbing the darkest depths of the human soul... he is the field marshal behind the lockstep discipline of the r's and their running dogs... this is not to let the r's or the sock puppets off the hook... they certainly are responsible and accountable for the words that come out of their mouths... hopefully, it will only be words and not something more serious...
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How many and what kinds of laws have to be broken...?
the threshold for imposing serious consequences on this administration has long since been crossed... asking how many and what kind of laws have to be broken is moot...
How many laws have to be broken before the President, the Vice President, and the "we were just following orders" crowd are held accountable? What kinds of laws have to be broken before anyone in this administration has to answer to the American people, and in this case, to the international community?
The bar for High Crimes has been set so high now that for a sitting President to be impeached, he would be have to actually commit an act of murder personally, live and in color, while simultaneously burning the flag, pissing on a soldier's uniform, and singing the national anthem in Persian.
That is, unless the President is a Democrat; then all he needs to do is receive fellatio in the oval office from a buxom young intern. A Republican President and his administration, however, can basically dismantle the government in a Fujimori-style coup, and their followers -- again, helped along by state-run propaganda -- will simply applaud from under their beds, ever-hiding from the big Osama threat.
the real question is who is going to do something about it and when... the supreme court made a strong step in that direction with hamdan vs. rumsfeld... but, appallingly, we are already facing this scenario...
The President breaks a law. A court rules that the President broke the law. Our Congress then responds swiftly by vowing to introduce a bill that would make the President's actions retroactively legal, thereby showing that his astute reading of the Constitution was simply ahead of its time. Then the President signs the bill into law, which he has the option to disregard according to his own signing edict -- which he has already done at least 750 times.
many are of the belief that the mid-term elections can begin to address the havoc being wreaked and take us in a new and better direction... i'm not so sure... for one thing, i'm not so sure that the elections are going to return the democrats to either house of congress and, two, neither am i sure that, even if the democrats do regain both houses, that we will see the substantive changes we so urgently need... given the level of destruction already perpetrated by the incumbent criminals, it's not conceivable to wait until 2008, yet what other option do we have...? and, even then, the odds that the right candidate will prevail are disturbingly low...
the question remains: who is going to do something about it and when...? imho, there needs to be a massive movement on the part of the american people - and soon - to insist that our government is clearly and seriously broken, to demand that those responsible are held accountable, and to insure that the people who can set about fixing the mess are put in place...
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screw the political advantage and screw anybody who thinks that's what it's about... the administration has been in the process of dismantling our constitutional system of government since 12 december 2000 and the supreme court decision is viewed as a LEVER TO GAIN POLITICAL ADVANTAGE...?!?! WTFlyin'F...!! will somebody PLEASE GET A GRIP...! the united states has not only taken a turn down the wrong highway, we may have completely left the planet... political advantage, my ass...
Republicans have served notice that Democrats must back Bush on how to try Guantanamo detainees or risk being branded soft on terrorism.
But California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos, warned Republicans they would "rue the day if they politicize this."
well, gol-l-ll-e-e-eee, diane, what, pray tell, has motivated you to take a stand...? not political advantage, i trust...
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Thailand-based relief worker Tom Kerr recalled tsunami devastation in Aceh, Indonesia, when he saw the Ninth Ward. "It looked a lot like Aceh when we visited six months after the storm," he said, asking why the United States had not done more.
"Most of the area could be improved very quickly, but it is deserted," said Somsook Boonyabancha, a colleague who is director of the Thai relief group. "If I was the government, I couldn't sleep at night."
[O]ne former senior FBI manager said he quit after tiring of the “constant berating” he got from lawmakers when briefing Congress. “All these factors play into a decision to leave: family, finances, burnout, pressure, criticism,” he says. “You've worked your a__ off. Eventually you say, Hey, the heck with this.”
could it also have something to do with the abandonment of ethical, moral, and constitutional principles by an out-of-control executive branch...? case in point, the article in time's current edition, subheadlined...
"There's Only So Much You Can Glean from Someone Who's Been Interrogated for Four Years."
the money quote...
"The supreme court's ruling in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld totals 185 pages and can be summarized in two words: Start over."
everyone who's been required to wage the war on terror (military, psychologists, medical doctors, cia, nsa, fbi, the list is long), bushco-style, undoubtedly must be feeling both shame and remorse, feelings that began to surface long before the supreme court ruling of last week... is it any wonder there's a rush to leave...?
an editorial comment in the raw story article makes an interesting observation...
In a sign that the press' relationship with President Bush continues to erode, a major Time Magazine news article in Monday's editions will tell Bush five ways they believe the jail could be fixed.
[...]
The magazine, it seems, has decided they can no longer get through to the Administration with news articles.
after going on six years of the bush administration flipping the digit to the media, the congress, the american people, the u.n., and the world in general, time magazine now concludes they "can no longer get through to the administration..." another bgo (blinding glimpse of the obvious)... do you suppose they might eventually wake up enough to grasp that our country underwent a silent coup d'etat beginning with 12 december 2000...?
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IF he is and IF he's sincere and IF he's truly undergone an epiphany and IF he's decided that being true to himself and letting it show is the only way to go and IF he actually manages to pull it off (5, count 'em, 5 ifs), i would still be speechless and awestruck as i cast my vote for al gore in 2008...
While it's not a traditional campaign, "it's the most brillant campaign anyone is running right now", said Martin Peretz, a long time Gore friend and the editor-in-chief of the New Republic..."It may be the most brillant campaign launch in our time."
just because i tend to dwell in the affairs of petty humans doesn't mean mother nature has to... she gives us these wonderful gifts every single day and the only thing she asks of us is to enjoy them...
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