Posts with the tag neocons

NEOCONFEDERATES

Mary — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:41:20 EDT

Those who oppose anything that Obama is trying to do and who display racism and bigotry, make me think it is the Civil War all over again. The Revenge of the South, if you will. I coined a new label for them. They are the NEOCONFEDERATES. If you read this, know that it is written by an old white lady who is more than sick of this kind of behavior. They offend, instigate, agitate and ultimately ruin everything for everyone.

I hope you use this word and spread it around. I hope that soon there will be some stats on them. i would like to know how many are there.

Maria (Mary) Kenez

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! ( 9)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:57:10 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

A picture from me to say goodbye from most bad president of US and all neocons.
We can only hope many people will long enough remember. Bush had a lot bad gifts for the change! Let's take care the poor and normal people will not have to pay now too much after the rich made profit in good time!
And what's with impeachment now?! What's with hidden knowledge of Sept. 11 2001?
[ Maybe an explanation of picture: it's made like an "egg laying wool milk sow" a metaphorical-idiomatic term in Germany]

Yeah, and here you can see something new about neocons were bringing to us - for me to say: don't forgive Bush and neocons and there is still a lot to work of. We will and can do this too - Yes we can!
I got now message too like "If anybody can clean up the mess bush left, it's President Obama." - Yes and Obama likes people helping still to do the work - help him! We were a big and strong movement and so people got knowledge back how strong people can be together!
Whistleblower: Bush's NSA spied on EVERYONE
(already 4255 Diggs) The NSA had access to ALL YOUR COMMUNICATIONS, regardless of who you were or whether or not you were communicating internationally.

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! ( 8)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:55:17 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! ( 7)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:52:03 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! ( 6)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:26:10 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! ( 5)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:30:30 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! ( 4)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:28:35 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! ( 3)

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:25:23 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

My way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney! - 2

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:05:51 EST

You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!

In 1999, Dennis Blair, as PACOM head disobeyed an order from the Clinton administration to tell Indonesia's military commander to shut down pro-Indonesian militias that were killing civilians in East Timor.

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:04:34 EST

December 18, 2008 -- Obama selects Dennis Blair as DNI

by Wayne Madsen @ waynemadsenreport.com

In a further slap in the face of progressives and human rights advocates, President-elect Barack Obama has selected retired Admiral Dennis Blair as the Director of National Intelligence, replacing retired Admiral Mike McConnell.

On December 1, 2008, WMR wrote the following about Blair in the DNI position:

"President-elect Barack Obama's reported choice to be Director of National Intelligence (DNI), retired Admiral Dennis Blair, a former Pacific Command chief and Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support, will ensure that the United States continues its neocon rhetorical babble on key foreign policy issues, especially those that relate to the Muslim world, including India and Indonesia.

SOURCE - http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Gaffney: 4,000 Americans Had To Die In Iraq

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:14:07 EST

Gaffney: 4,000 Americans Had To Die In Iraq»

In a new interview with ABC News, Vice President Cheney claimed that the the case for war had nothing to do with whether Saddam Hussein had WMD; America would have invaded anyway. Today on MSNBC’s Hardball, right-wing commentator Frank Gaffney defended Cheney’s remarks, saying that the “real reason” the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq was because Saddam was a “mortal threat” to the United States.

Host Chris Matthews was appalled that Gaffney seemed to feel no guilt or remorse than 4,000 Americans died because of the right wing’s mistakes. Gaffney replied that while it was “regrettable” anyone had to die, they “did have to die”:

MATTHEWS: You guys sold the war as a nuclear threat to the United States. A nuclear weapon was going to be delivered by a nuclear delivery device. It was going to take the weapon and drop it here. You sold every trick you could to get us into this war. Now you’re back pedaling. And I do find it astounding.............
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/16/gaffney-americans-die/

Prominent neoconservative: 4,000 Americans 'had to die'

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:34:06 EST

Prominent neoconservative: 4,000 Americans 'had to die'

Four thousand American troops "had to die" in Iraq, even if the United States knew Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, a prominent neoconservative said in a shocking interview on MSNBC Tuesday evening.

Vice President Dick Cheney told ABC News earlier this week that the U.S. would have invaded Iraq regardless of whether or not they had weapons of mass destruction.

Adding fire to Cheney's surprising comments Tuesday was prominent neoconservative and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney, who told MSNBC's Chris Matthews during Tuesday's 'Hardball' that the United States had to invade Iraq whether or not its intelligence was sound.........

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Gaffney_4000_Americans_had_to_die_1217.html

Post-Racial Racism at the "Washington Post" : The Undying Obsession with Black Family Values

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:26:53 EST

The Undying Obsession with Black Family Values

Post-Racial Racism at the Post

By DEDRICK MUHAMMAD @ counterpunch.com

As we come closer to the "post-racial age" of a Barack Obama presidency, I am intrigued to find that post-racial racism is already being propagated in the pages of the Washington Post. In "An Enduring Crisis for the Black Family," Kay Hymowitz blames the economic disfranchisement of African Americans upon the personal behavior of Black people and the silence of Black leaders concerning this behavior. Ms. Hymowitz portrays the massive national growth of single parent homes as a Black pathology. She uses the real challenge of the breakdown in the traditional family to further stereotype and lay blame on African Americans for racial inequality in this country......

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.counterpunch.org/muhammad12112008.html

Shiver Me Neocons

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:05:12 EST

Shiver Me Neocons

by Jeff Huber @ military.com | December 09, 2008

It was only a matter of time before Long Bill Kristol and his scurvy dogs of war used piracy as an excuse to goad young Mr. Bush into invading one last country before the door hits him. In the December 8 gurgitation of the Weekly Standard, Bill suggests that the best thing young Mr. Bush can do in his final days as commander in chief is send the Marines into Somalia to deep six those pesky buccaneers. Now: if we can't identify and capture pirates while they're plundering ships on the bounding main, I'd like to know how the yo-ho-ho Bill thinks the Marines can tell the pirates from the rest of the poor starving Somalis once they go ashore.

Bill also remarks how Bush can do the nation a service "by reminding Americans of our successes fighting the war on terror." One wonders if Bill is no fooling unaware that terrorists are on the verge of a sparking war between two nuclear powers, or that a congressionally mandated task force has reported that "it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013," or that, according to the respected analysts at the Rand Corporation, Mr. Bush's pursuit of a military-centric counter-terror strategy "has not undermined al Qaeda" and that the terrorist group "has remained a strong and competent organization."

One would hope that given the enormous influence he wields, Bill is at least partially cognizant of the world around him, that he just talks that way because he's a master of Socratic dialectic* who recites gibberish until people agree with him so he shuts up...........

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,180858,00.html

Is Iran Policy Still Up for Grabs?

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:13:44 EST

Still Preparing to Attack Iran

The neoconservatives in the Obama era

by Robert Dreyfuss @ antiwar.com

What, exactly, does Barack Obama's mild-mannered choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, former Sen. Tom Daschle, have to do with neocons who want to bomb Iran?

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners, and neoconservatives expects Barack Obama's proposed talks with Iran to fail – and they're already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to enhance coordination with Israel, tougher sanctions against Iran, and a region-wide military buildup of U.S. strike forces, including the pre-positioning of military supplies within striking distance of that country...........

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=13847

Neocon Shapeshifters Cross Aisles Like Nobody's Business.

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:38:55 EST

Obama's Outsider/Insider Conflict

by Philip Weiss @ mondoweiss

Last night I was thinking about the Obama revolution, and how it's going to work out. All societies face revolutionary fervors; and in a democratic society we deal with them the way we just did: we bring in a total outsider. It's amazing to watch.

Obama's movement was built on outsider energy. Obama was incredibly scary to the Republican Jewish Coalition, and I mocked them all campaign long, but he must have been just as scary, or almost, to Marty Peretz and Rahm Emanuel. They surely worried that he had revolutionary zeal. He's too skinny to make anyone comfortable. They feared he would chase the moneychangers from the temple, re Israel/Palestine, and they acted shrewdly. Now they're all over him......

ENTIRE POST- http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/11/a-friend-asks-wheres-samantha-power-this-is-a-power-list-not-an--appointment-list-powers-in-good-shape-she-once-called-l.html#more

Neocons Plot to Co-Opt Obama

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:56:14 EST

Neocons Plot to Co-Opt Obama

By William Pfaff @ truthdig.com

Since the triumph of Barack Obama, nearly every medium of news and political comment in the United States and abroad has carried a compendium of "challenges" and dangers facing the next president. Yet when these challenges are examined, they nearly all turn out to be potential opportunities.

So far as they are obstacles, they usually involve efforts by other governments to block the United States from continuing policies of the Bush government meant to manipulate or intimidate them......

ENTIRE ARTICLE- http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081106_neocons_plot_to_co_opt_obama/

All Hope is Lost

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:27:12 EST

Neocons Plot to Co-Opt Obama

By William Pfaff

Since the triumph of Barack Obama, nearly every medium of news and political comment in the United States and abroad has carried a compendium of “challenges” and dangers facing the next president. Yet when these challenges are examined, they nearly all turn out to be potential opportunities.

So far as they are obstacles, they usually involve efforts by other governments to block the United States from continuing policies of the Bush government meant to manipulate or intimidate them.

The basic Bush policies—defense spending at levels higher than all the rest of the world combined, unilateralism, hostility to the United Nations and international law, advocacy of “preventive” wars, efforts to dominate the Middle East, constant pressure on Russia and what might be called contingent hostility toward China, opposition to European Union efforts at military cooperation—all have been promoted since the 1990s by nationalist and neoconservative Republicans acting through the conservative Washington think tanks..........

ARTICLE- http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081106_neocons_plot_to_co_opt_obama/

No Neocons

Stephen from Spokane, WA — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:38:16 EST

We need to tell President-Elect Obama that we don't want no stinkin' neocons. No to Summers, no to Rubin. Yes to Reich, yes to Stiglitz, yes to Krugman.

Emanuel's Middle Name Is Israel.

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:47:14 EST

Emanuel's Middle Name Is Israel. And I Guess So Is Obama's...

Martin Sieff in the Daily Beast calls Rahm Emanuel a "quasi-neocon-hawk" and points out that his middle name is Israel. This is why I pushed for a low Jewish vote for Obama. He got 78 percent. He didn't get the hard-core neocons. The absolute nuts. But because he got 80 percent, the generational shakeout between progressive Jewish voice and the liberal hawks didn't happen. The quasi-neocons are still with him....

ENTIRE POST- http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/11/emanuels-middle-name-is-israel-and-i-guess-so-is-obamas.html#more

Why Obama is Actually More Conservative Then McCain

AmeriGus — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:29:45 EST

By Gustav Wynn

A strange thing happened to me when I was creating my bio for this site - I realized that I had more in common with traditional Conservatism then Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, John McCain or the folks running the Heritage Foundation. After reading this article, you might find that you, dear reader, are also far more Conservative then those rich elite and that even Barack Obama, labeled the most "liberal" Senator in Congress is actually more Conservative then any of these other Americans. [Update: Barron's agrees.]

Defeating McCain: Ending Not Only Neocon Policies, but Also Tactics

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:48:45 EDT

Defeating McCain: Ending Not Only Neocon Policies, but Also Tactics

by Glenn Greenwald

Numerous commentators have condemned the McCain campaign's despicable -- and patently false -- attack on Professor Rashid Khalidi as an "anti-Semite," deployed in order, yet again, to insinuate that Barack Obama is an American-hating, Muslim/Arab radical. Even Fred Hiatt's Washington Post Editorial Page this morning called McCain's comments about Rashidi "a vile smear," "simply ludicrous," and "itself condemnable," and favorably cited Rashidi's response when asked by The Post if he wanted to address the controversy: "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over."

It's true, as those commentators point out, that this episode is just the latest in the McCain campaign's increasingly desperate (and laughably inept) attempt to win by sinking lower and lower into McCarthyite muck. But it goes far beyond just the McCain campaign. The neoconservative Right has been doing exactly this for a long time..........

ENTIRE ARTICLE- http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/31/neocons/

Abstinence-Only For Non-Conservative Youth Only

Vanessa Edwards from Houston, TX — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:04:15 EDT

http://transpolitical.blogspot.com/2008/09/abstinence-only-for-non-conservative.html

reprint from TransPolitical blog 9/7/08

“Poor is the manWhose pleasures depend

On the permission of another.” — Justify My Love, Madonna

The chattering hubbub has somewhat died down on Bristol Palin’s pregnancy out of wedlock. Ironically, it appears that both Republican and Democrats’ campaigns were happy to see this subside. As a blogger, I didn’t really have any issue with Bristol Palin as it’s unfortunate, but still a natural occurrence. I actually felt sorry for both her and her unwitting husband-to-be.

What was saddest was seeing how the oh-so-sanctimonious-and-now-embarrassed Republican National Committee operatives did everything they could to obfuscate. They paraded her out (gotta have those family values), but had baby Trig attached to her as if umbilically, complete with baby blanket plastered strategically over her body to hide the baby-bulge. It wasn’t really overt of a bulge, but the RNC and McCain campaign’s paranoia was such that even the slightest breath of pregnancy out of wedlock was enough to induce palpitations.

Once the news became obvious (how they thought they were powerful enough to shut off all private conversation, I’m at a loss!), they discovered it didn’t matter so much to their evangelical moralist base. Evangelicals rallied round, regardless of the values dichotomy. Now that Bristol was allowed to be a real teenager, sans blanket, and without permanent babysitting penance of mom’s progeny, she actually looked happier. She was just another of the Palin kids, enjoying the moment.

There Will Be Racism II: "White People, Vote Race -- Not Party!!"

Vanessa Edwards from Houston, TX — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:24:43 EDT

http://transpolitical.blogspot.com/2008/08/there-will-be-racism-ii-white-people.html reprint of TransPolitical blog 8/3/08

Exitus acta probat (the outcome justifies the deeds) — Niccolo Machiavelli

After processing what I heard the other day, the reality of this election season, this is what the message in the upcoming election boils down to:

For democrats, it’s Corporate America (big business) vs. the people.

For republicans, it’s blacks and muslims (terror) vs. white people.

In a nutshell, that’s how this all plays out. Democrats are going to point out the classism inherent in our current state in America and how it’s created the ills we’re seeing economically. Republicans are going to focus on terrorism and remind everyone of their fears of terror, whether it be from muslims or from blacks who they will try to conflate with them, whether muslim or not. For the vast majority of Americans, the economy is the urgent issue. For conservatives, it must be shifted to fear and terror.

Know Thine Enemy, pt II (from Townhall)

Marjani — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:04:41 EDT

In their words: He received a 100 percent Liberal Rating from the National Journal, making him the most left-wing Senator in Washington - more liberal than even Democratic senators like Ted Kennedy. If you look at Obama's record, you will understand just how dangerous this man is.

Take it back.

Karen Copeland — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:47:06 EDT

They've taken away, one by one, some of the most crucial components of the America we knew and loved. Sometimes they do it by stealth and sometimes they do it openly, cheered on and encouraged by the thoughtless brainwashed lunatic right wing fringe. They pimp all that's good and fine about conservatives and they lie about all that's best about liberals. It has worked far too well, for far too long.

I'm not going to try to name them all -- I'll just describe them the way the Bible described the bad guys: they are Legion. We simply cannot sit quietly by any more.

Barack Obama represents the finest chance most of us have seen in our lifetimes to take it back from them. To take it back, and to re-enshrine the crucial checks and balances that the inspired founding fathers established. These people have been busily chipping away at them for a long time. If there was ever a candidate who really might be able to help us undo their wretchedly destructive work, it's Barack Obama.

America is down for the count. We have the opportunity to elect a man who'll allow her to come out swinging, Rocky-style. We have a chance to have a true statesman at the helm of this country we love, once again. Someone to also make us proud again. I don't know about you, but I'd really like to have a president we can be proud of -- instead of one we're embarrassed by.

John McCain is a good man. He's done real violence to much of what once made him that way, but he's still a good man. But he is losing his marbles before our very eyes and Sara Palin is a truly horrifying choice. She's George Bush in an attractive woman's disguise. She appeals to all the same unlovely things in the American psyche that he did. God help us that she appeals to a single soul.

Stand the two presidential candidates side by side, and John McCain suffers so badly in the comparison you almost pity him. Then you realize how close the polls have the two, and you realize it ain't over yet by a long shot.

We know they stole the 2000 and 2004 elections. The selfsame machine that accomplished that is untouched, still in place, and probably stronger than ever. I don't know what will happen in November. I cling to some forlorn hope that there has been some kind of quiet, committed effort behind the scenes by the Jedi, to thwart the Sith Lords. There's sure not any evidence of it, but hope springs eternal, right?

God bless this beatiful, miraculous, badly battered country. And if you believe in prayer -- the real kind, not the kind that prays for bad things to happen to other people, but the kind that gives might to the honorable hopes and dreams of those doing the praying -- pray for an Obama win in November. And even if you're as discouraged as I am about the prospects of the elections actually revealing the will of the people, vote, vote, vote anyway. Vote as if your life depended on it anyway. Because the one thing that you have to have if you're going to rig an election is a close election. If the vote for Obama is overwhelming they won't prevail.

Let's make that happen. It might be the most important thing we ever do.

Boggling The Current Financial Mess

Jim — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:14:52 EDT

Boggling The Mind - Sept 21, 2008

These are unbelievable, incomprehensible times.
We knew it would get ugly; but with still fifty-some days to go?

I'm confused -- just trying to figure out the current financial mess;
What's going on? Where's the money coming from? and going to?

And, I'm beginning to suspect the worst -- see below:

Hard Ball Tactics: PLEASE read this: The Sarah Palin Smokescreen, and Wisconsin Small-town residents boo media with McCain

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:43:01 EDT

The Sarah Palin Smokescreen posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel

(http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/katrina_vanden_heuvel) on 09/04/2008 The Nation "Here's the deal: Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction," Bob Herbert wrote in a New York Times op-ed(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/opinion/02herbert.html)on Tuesday.

"She's meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign--the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions." Herbert's right on target.

Barack Obama honed in on that point in Denver too (http://www.barackobama.com/2008/08/28/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_108.php). "If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things."

On cue, Sarah Palin attempted to paint an absurd caricature of Obama in her speech at the Republican Convention last night: "What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world."

More than anything, this election should be about the big issues of our time--ending a disastrous war, restoring America's reputation in the world and building an economy that works for more than just the very rich. The challenge for Democrats is to frame these issues in a way that connects with traditional American and progressive values, exposes Republican callousness and extremism, and in doing so trumps the GOP's political marketing which cynically and cleverly plays on symbolism. [http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/349350/taking_on_poverty_and_inequality].

As George Lakoff wrote (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/02), "Just arguing the realities, the issues, the hard truths should be enough in times this bad, but the political mind and its response to symbolism cannot be ignored..... Democrats, in addition, need to call an extremist an extremist: to shine a light on the shared anti-democratic ideology of McCain and Palin, the same ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They share values antithetical to our democracy."

In order to have a fighting chance after eight ruinous years of Bush, the Republicans need voters to lose sight of where we are as a nation and how Republican leadership got us there. We saw that with the GOP's politicization of Hurricane Gustav in an attempt to whitewash eight years of hostility to the notion of government's role as a force for public good.(http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/352686)

We see it with their hypocritical media-bashing. {Let's not forget, as Bloomberg News' Al Hunt told the New York Times, "Probably no one in American politics over the last twenty years has had a closer relationship with the national press than John McCain."} And we are seeing it again now. McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis admitted as much - as The Nation's Christopher Hayes noted when he said, "This election is not about issues.

This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/jstreet/353084/not_about_issues)

That's exactly how Republicans win. Democrats can't let them get away with it.

So it was good to see Obama and Joe Biden both calling the Republicans out for the lack of attention being paid to the economy at the Republican Convention in St. Paul on Tuesday. (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/democrats-criticize-gop-convention/?ei=5070&emc=eta1)

"You did not hear a single world about the economy," Mr. Obama said. "Not once did they mention the hardships that people are going through." Harold Meyerson also wrote about the Republicans' failure to address the economy at their convention in an op-ed in Wednesday's Washington Post: "I have combed the schedule of events here without finding a single forum... devoted to what John McCain and the Republican Party propose to do about America's short and long-term economic challenges.... For all these woes, McCain offers only a continuation of Bush's tax cuts for the rich and an ideological bias toward the very kind of deregulation that has wrecked the housing market.... If the election is about the economy, they're cooked - and their silence this week on nearly all things economic means that they know it." it. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090202442_pf.html)

If the Republicans succeed in making this election about something other than the big issues, they are likely to win. If it's about a likable woman governor who can shoot a gun and field dress a moose, or a churchgoing commander of the Alaskan National Guard, they are likely to win. Or if they pull off the feat of making the reactionary right-wing McCain-Palin ticket seem more "connected to the people" than Obama-Biden whose stance on the issues is in touch with millions of Americans who seek a more active government in these economically squeezed times, then they are likely to win. (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/339763/americans_government_and_the_american_dream)

If voters really want real change, rather than Reality Politics TV-style change [sponsored by the Republicans and that darn elitist corporate media], here are some important facts to consider: (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/business/31view.html)

Since 1948, the economy has grown faster on average under Democratic presidents than under Republicans; and income inequality trended "substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats," according to Princeton professor of political science, Larry M. Bartels, author of Unequal Democracy. These historical trends have serious implications for today's challenges of increasing poverty, stagnating wages, and a greater concentration of wealth than anytime since 1928 (http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_income_20080826) .

In these next sixty-one days until the election, small-d democrats who are committed to forming a more perfect union will need to do everything we can to stay focused on the big issues, expose Republican callousness and anti-democratic policies for what they are, and lay out the clear choice that lies before us. (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/354368)

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Small-town residents boo media with McCain http://washingtontimes.com/weblogs/joe-curl/2008/Sep/05/small-town-residents-boo-media-mccain-1/

POSTED September 05 2008 3:59 PM BY Joseph Curl CEDARBURG, Wisc.

Hundreds of angry people in this small town outside Milwaukee taunted reporters and TV crews traveling with Sen. John McCain on Friday, chanting "Be fair!" and pointing fingers at a pack of journalists as they booed loudly.

On the first leg of the "McCain Street USA" tour -- which will take the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, to small towns across the heartland -- the 30 or so reporters and crew were walking back to their buses to join the McCain motorcade when hundreds of townspeople started yelling. "Stop lying! You are all liars! Tell the truth!" one woman yelled from the front of the pack.

The crowd was not menacing or threatening, but was clearly angry. "You're telling lies! Stop the lies!" one man yelled. Asked why the crowd was so angry, Linda J. Green of Mequon, Wisc., said: "I'm thinking the press is very biased."

"I think the press is very liberal and very slanted against the McCain-Palin ticket. Would you ask a man if his kids were being taken care of while he's out campaigning?" She said the coverage of Mrs. Palin is flat-out sexist. "The media has called her a sexy librarian look. Would you say that Obama is a sexy Will Smith look? They called her Tina Fey's sister, only sexier. I think you're being very sexist."

Another woman questioned local television coverage, which differed for the Republican and Democratic party conventions, she said. "Why did the networks not carry the Republican convention, when they carried the Democratic convention?" she asked. "They do it because they're liberal," a man chimed in.

The scene was reminiscent of one that occurred spontaneously at the RNC, when Mrs. Palin accused political pundits and columnists of misinformation. With thousands of red-meat Republicans in the huge Xcel Center in Minneapolis, the crowd turned ugly. Hundreds began pointing at a group of reporters and booing -- some chanted "CNN!" while others yelled "MSNBC!"

— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times

NeoCons - PNAC - New World Order

geekpro — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:21:17 EDT

The PNAC manifesto - written by neo-cons for neo-cons appears to have been enacted by the neo-cons in the Bush II administration and most likely will continue if McCain is elected.

In fact, this PNAC manifesto yearns for a “New Pearl Harbor” on page 63. “Further, the process of transformation [of 2000's U.S. military into a globally-dominant force for enacting the New American Century], even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”

And voila, a year later a new Pearl-Harbor-esque attack occurs on 11 September 2001 with 86% of the Bush II administration’s first term remaining for enactment of much of the now-catalyzed PNAC plan.

Page 51 of PNAC stresses the need for a New Pearl Harbor as an impetus to motivate the American people to accept a huge military buildup, increased military spending, global wars and draconian government actions deemed necessary for security.

It's frightening stuff....

Read it here

Watch it here

New World Order

RNC - ---> Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:28:27 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

RNC ---> Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:24:45 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

RNC - --> Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:20:45 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

RNC - -> Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:15:29 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

RNC --> Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:08:50 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

RNC - - Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:03:50 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

RNC -- Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:58:34 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

RNC - Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:47:24 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

RNC - Republicans today are not standing for own values and moral

! Steffen from European Union, Dr. - Together We Can! Yes. We. Can. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:27:42 EDT

RNC - Republicans are not standing for own values and moral

Post of green antiwar blog "Change for better world -"

- Ron Paul on November Ballot for President

- Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

- Insane Neocons Will Drive Us to War with Russia and Nuclear Confrontation

- Out of Touch: Cindy McCain's Monday Outfit Cost $300,000

- 5 Deeply Disturbing Things About Last Night’s RNC

- McCain operatives stole American Flags for a political stunt

- "Republican Flag Pins "Made in China"?

- Stop the greed at home too! Obama and McCain Tax Proposals

- McBush - Election speeches of Bush and McCain compared... (movie)

62 diggs (Monday 8.)

8 Comments

Why CIA Veterans Are Scared of McCain

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:32:28 EDT

Why CIA Veterans Are Scared of McCain

By Laura Rozen

Washington Dispatch: Four years ago, the candidate called the CIA a "rogue organization"; now he's advised by a former Chalabi promoter and Agency basher. No wonder the spooks are spooked.

.........These critics point especially to the McCain campaign's top national security adviser Randy Scheunemann—who ran a front group promoting war with Iraq and the fabrications of controversial Iraqi exile politician Ahmad Chalabi, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and who has lobbied for aggressive NATO expansion. Scheunemann's record, they argue, encapsulates everything wrong with the past eight years of Bush leadership on intelligence issues, from a penchant for foreign policy freelancing and secret contacts with unreliable fabricators, to neoconservatives' disdain for the perceived bureaucratic timidity of the CIA and State Department, to their avowed hostility for diplomacy with adversaries.........

ARTICLE- http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/08/why-cia-veterans-are-scared-of-mccain.html

This Time, the World Is Not Buying It

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:18:34 EDT

This Time, the World Is Not Buying It

by Paul Craig Roberts

The success of the Bush Regime's propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.

As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag............

ENTIRE ARTICLE- http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=13309

What is wrong with our foreign policy?

SITALCES — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:27:23 EDT

I am sorry friends, but I see nothing different between McCain's and Obama's foreign policy. This is not to say that the two men are the same. But, it surely shows that their campaigns are run by similar rusty minded people and I am not about to compromise with the same "high school" mentality any longer. Now, if Obama picks Hillary as his running mate (dream-team), a proponent of continuing Bush's foreign policy, the show will become another soap opera that will be good only for old ladies to wet their..... hankershiefs. There are many reasons for being disappointed on Obama's current approach to international problems, but I will try to explain just one.

Even the most naive American has enough information now to figure out the "neocons" and the state of Israel are having the same goals when it comes to foreign policy. It is also obvious that their adventures in the Middle East and Eastern Europe have cost America dearly. Our economy is in shambles, our institutions are falling apart, our reputation as Americans has hit rock bottom, and we are taxed in more than one ways by greedy banks and government alike in their effort to stay afloat. In short, our government is run by lobbies that are harmful to Americans and that was Barack's message that made me vote for him in the Primaries. The last thing I expected Barack to do was to follow on the steps of McCain and Bush by visiting Israel. If he wanted to change things and start a new era of prosperity for America and of co-operation under peaceful conditions he should have visited Moscow, or at least have met with Russian leaders on neutral ground.

Moscow is forming an alliance with countries which grow tired by the immoral, unethical and above all predictable foreign policy of the Bush administration. This alliance is formed out of necessity to counteract the expansion of the so called West into traditionally "Eastern" territories. But this is no longer sustainable and in fact it is hazardous for you and I. Take the recent events in Georgia for example.

When it unleashed its troops in Georgia, Russian leader Vladimir Putin was doing more than delivering a beating to a cocky former dependency. He was delivering a message to us: Russia is back. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has endured what its leaders see as a series of humiliations. The expansion of its old foe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to its very borders. The clumsy Bush plans to base a missile shield on its periphery. The recognition of an independent Kosovo over the objections of Russia's ally Serbia and even the recognition of Macedonia over the objections of our ally, Greece. Each time, Russia complained bitterly. Each time, the West went right ahead anyway. Now, a newly confident Russia grown rich on oil is pushing back, reasserting its rights as a great power.

More broadly, Moscow is telling the West it will no longer put up with being overlooked on the issues that matter to Russia. Historian Robert Kagan wrote this week that Aug. 8, 2008, the day Moscow made its move in Georgia, may come to be seen "as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell."

With a strong, popular leader in Mr. Putin, a growing economy and a new sense of national vigour, Moscow is no longer content merely to swallow its bitterness over Bush's moves that it sees as hostile for no real reason other than cheap thrills. He has warned that Russia might point nuclear missiles at countries that hosted the missile sites and he has suspended Moscow's treaty pledges to limit European weapons deployments. Last month, Moscow even put forward a proposal that would essentially sideline NATO and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and replace them with a new Eurasian security system that might include China and India. But it was Kosovo that gave Moscow its chance to strike back. When the Balkan mini-state proclaimed its independence from Serbia in February, Moscow asserted that it might respond by recognising the self-proclaimed breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Russia's message is crystal clear: "Don't tread on me" wrote Dmitri Trenin, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, for Radio Free Europe. Don't try to push your Western democracy on us. Moscow is especially eager to teach Georgia a lesson because it is the site of the Rose Revolution, the populist 2003 uprising that led to the rise of pro-Western president Mikheil Saakashvili. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine followed, and that is more than enough colour for a Russian regime that believes those movements represent an attempt to subvert it from within.

But so far the Western response has been mainly rhetorical and there seems little appetite to tangle with the Russian bear over a conflict that seems obscure to many in the West. Among other things, Western leaders are worried about how turmoil in the Caucasus could affect pipelines that carry Caspian oil and gas over the region to Turkey. America is not immune to all this. An alliance between Russia/China/Iran could put an end to the petrodollar, increase our dependency on foreign oil and make Dow Jones to unwind in a spiral that will make the great depression look like kid's play. The only card we may have left is a military response with tactical nuclear weapons, a solution that is advocayed by the Neocons, but I wouldn't count on a pleasant final outcome for us and especially for our ally in the Middle East. It is clear to me, as it is clear to our European allies that the American leader who will approach Moscow will do America a great favour that would be greatly appreciated by all true blue Americans.

Neocons Now Love International Law

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:42:26 EDT

Neocons Now Love International Law

by Robert Parry

It’s touching how American neoconservatives who have no regard for international law when they want to invade some troublesome country have developed a sudden reverence for national sovereignty.

Apparently, context is everything. So, the United States attacking Grenada or Nicaragua or Panama or Iraq or Serbia is justified even if the reasons sometimes don’t hold water or don’t hold up before the United Nations, The Hague or other institutions of international law.

However, when Russia attacks Georgia in a border dispute over Georgia’s determination to throttle secession movements in two semi-autonomous regions, everyone must agree that Georgia’s sovereignty is sacrosanct and Russia must be condemned.....

ENTIRE ARTICLE- http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/16431

Max Hastings in The Guardian: “Negotiating with Iran is maddening, but bombing would be a catastrophe”

Sheldon from Doylestown — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:47:36 EDT

Negotiating with Iran is maddening, but bombing would be a catastrophe

US military posturing towards Tehran lacks credibility and, in any case, such action would fail in all its purposes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/04/iran.usa

Max Hastings. The Guardian, August 4, 2008

The favoured season for launching wars used to come when the harvest had been gathered. This year, there is talk of an Israeli strike against Iran in November or December, when it would no longer embarrass the US election process but George Bush will still be in the White House during the presidential transition.

Last year, following a US intelligence submission which stated that Iran was not actively pursuing the creation of atomic weapons, a direct American attack on the country's nuclear facilities became implausible - and remains so. But Jerusalem and Washington are talking seriously about a possible Israeli strike, for which American collusion would be indispensable.

In Washington at the weekend, Shaul Mofaz, Israel's deputy defence minister and a candidate for the premiership, said of negotiations to halt Iran's nuclear programme: "It's a race against time, and time is winning." He repeated the familiar Israeli warning that Iran's possession of nuclear weapons would be "unacceptable".

Optimists welcomed last month's meeting in Geneva, at which the US under-secretary of state, William Burns, met Iranian delegates. This was the highest level contact for decades between the two nations. Yet there remains no sign of Iranian retreat from its longstanding position, that it is entitled to maintain a uranium enrichment programme. Pessimists fear that the Burns trip was designed to highlight Tehran's intractability, in advance of military action.

Last month, Tehran announced that it now possesses 6,000 centrifuges, a dramatic increase in its last declared figure. This was probably an exaggeration for negotiating purposes, but gives no comfort at all to the UN, the EU or anybody else seeking signs of a breakthrough towards a deal.

Most Europeans would like to hear their new American idol, Barack Obama, warn the Israelis against undertaking military action against Iran. Even if Obama does not yet sit in the White House, no Jerusalem government could lightly defy America's likely next president on an issue of such gravity.

But no man who wants to win a US election dares to qualify his support for Israel. Obama's statements during his brief visit to the country last month were indistinguishable from those of Bush. There seem grounds for anticipating that Obama may be less radical, more indulgent towards Israel, than visionaries suppose. A McCain administration, meanwhile, would merely pick up where Bush leaves off.

There is no doubt about the desire of both the Israeli and US governments to destroy Iran's nuclear plants by force. Two years ago, a Washington political guru suggested to me that Bush's last months would be the time to watch, when he became obsessed with his legacy. "Solving" the Iran nuclear issue, said my friend, would be foremost in Bush's mind. So, indeed, it seems today.

The best prospect of averting this disaster - and, of course, many of us would perceive it as such - lies in the intractable practical difficulties. The US military has briefed the president that, with most of Iran's facilities underground, only nuclear bunker-busting bombs offer a real prospect of achieving their destruction.

It remains hard to believe that the US could countenance the use of such weapons, by their own aircraft or those of the Israelis. Conventional bombs could inflict some damage. A limited attack would demonstrate Israel's ability to strike at will if the Iranians persist with their programme.

But the economic and political costs of such an exhibition of force would be appalling. Oil prices would soar to dizzier heights. Any possibility of dialogue between Iran and the west would vanish for years to come. The Iranians would probably fulfil their threat, to retaliate with terrorist action against US interests worldwide. Former US air force colonel Sam Gardiner, a respected military analyst, suggests that bombing Iran "would be unlikely to yield the results American policymakers do want, and ... likely to yield results that they do not".

The Iranian government may be reckless - even fanatical - but it is not mad. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have assuredly made these calculations for themselves. The US is seeking to behave with the outward assurance of a superpower, while crippled by its difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US wishes to bestride the Middle East as an armoured knight, but its foes know that beneath the plates it is bleeding badly.

The Iranians appear to be gambling that, at the last ditch, the US will flinch from taking military action, or from allowing Israel to do so, because the costs would be unacceptably high. The implacable unhelpfulness of Russia and China about western purposes towards Tehran strengthens Iranian resolve. Moscow and Beijing have no more desire than the Americans to see Iran possess nuclear weapons. But they both gain satisfaction from Washington's embarrassments, and from strengthening their own influence in the Middle East at American expense.

However deep is European distaste for the Bush administration, for the Iraq war and for the excesses of Israeli policy, it seems important not to lose sight of some basics. The Tehran government aspires to regional hegemony, which it would be unlikely to exercise in an enlightened fashion. Iran is an exceptionally nasty elective dictatorship that denies freedoms and represses human rights, not least those of women. It is deplorable that Israel and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons, but the world will become an even less safe place if Iran also acquires them. Its desire to do so seems hard to dispute, even if doubts persist about its proximity to fulfilment.

Thus, America's fundamental objective deserves endorsement, which it receives from the UN and the EU through their backing for sanctions. The difficulty, as usual, is that so many issues are entwined - Iraq and Israel foremost among them. Lawrence Freedman has just published a new book, A Choice of Enemies, in which he examines America's relationship with the Middle East over the past 30 years. His conclusion is that today's problems stretch beyond anything that can be dignified as solutions. They can only be "managed or endured".

This is unspectacular, but seems right. The folly of American military posturing towards Iran is its absence of credibility. That is to say, no one doubts Bush's executive power to launch an air attack, or sanction the Israelis to do so. However, it is evident to all but the neocons and some dangerous people in Jerusalem that such action must fail in its purposes, making matters worse rather than better.

The dreadful Bibi Netanyahu, who may soon again become Israel's prime minister, declared that 9/11 was "good for Israel", and so from his viewpoint it was. It left the Muslim world almost friendless in the US, and increased the readiness of Americans to perceive the Israelis as comrades in arms against a common enemy.

Yet the fallout from a putative Israeli attack on Iran - and I hope I am right to use the word only figuratively - should cause even post-Bush Americans to perceive that this is no way to order the world. Negotiating with the Iranians is a maddening and frustrating business. But bombing them would be a catastrophe for us all. Many fingers will need to be tightly crossed between now and next January.

Gas Station

Jack — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:25:42 EDT

White screen. Desolate desert shot, wind, loud, then fading to quiet background noise.

Focus to Bush lookalike staring with intent, concentration slightly to the right of the camera, looking into the distance.

He is wearing a grey jumpsuit, hand on a steel handrail reminicent of mad king george in his flight suit on the carrier deck.

A double ring of a tire triggered gas station bell rings. ’George’ frowns, then turns and jogs off screen to the left.

Camera pulls back and pans left, showing that the rail is the edge of a gas station and ’George’ is jogging up to an extra long black limo sitting at a gas pump.
The place is old and worn, sand covers most of the tarmac.

Shot of sand swirling as we transition to the second shot.

’George’ is handing a white bag and soft drink container to the driver, who is wearing white gloves.

As the car drives off, showing diplomat plates. ’George’ turns to camera, dust in the air behind him as the camera moves left and pans right, moving ’George’ to the left side of the screen showing the pump, and a dilapidated gas station with a hand painted sight ’Arbusto’. There are dark storm clouds building in the distance.

’George’ faces the camera, right hand pocketing a wad of foriegn bill. He raises his left hand, gives a thumbs up and says ’Mission Accomplished folks.’

The camera pulls away from a tv screen being watched by ’The Candidate’ sitting at a serious desk reminiscent of the desk in the Oval Office.

He turns to the camera and just says:

"Please. On November Fourth go to your polling place and vote Democratic to restore Democracy to America."

Still shot of a single polling booth with an American flag next to it.

Fade to black.

An idea for a commercial.

Jack — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:19:29 EDT

Close up on an eye. Slow pull back to reveal Richard Nixon’s face. Switch to Nixon saying ’I am not a crook.

Switch to Reagan, still, but live, while background rolls quarter size pictures of the Ayahtollah Khomeini, Olli North, Some contras standing over dead innocents, Rumsfeld schmoozing with Sadaam Hussien.

Still shot of people lined up outside an unemployment office.

Switch to Bush 1, saying ’read my lips’.

Still shot of a hobo sleeping on a bench in winter.

Switch to Bush 2 in a flight suit on the carrier deck giving the thumbs up, saying ’mission accomplished.

Then a fast series of full screen pictures. The Enron Building and logo, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, Worldcom building and logo. Saudi Prince Bandar walking hand in hand with mad king george.

A quick film of georgie staring at that childrens book, dumbfounded at the news that NY City is under attack.

Another quick series of pics. Lady Katrina Sat pic in full glory. Suffering victims, the guy waving on a roof, acres of trailers sitting empty, piles of ice melting nowhere near the gulf

A quick clip of Bush with his arm around FEMA director Brown, saying ’heck of a job, Brownie....

Still shot of a family, wet and wrapped in a blanket, forlorn.

A series of quick familiar cameoshots,. The Usual Suspects....

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Condi, Gonzales, Rove, Lott, Bill O’reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich.

Still shot of Jack Abramoff on the steps wearing the black trenchcoat and hat...

Film burns as we pull away from a tv screen being watched by ’The Candidate’ sitting at a serious desk reminiscent of the desk in the Oval Office.

He turns to the camera and just says:

"Please. On November Fourth go to your polling place and vote Democratic to restore Democracy to America."

Still shot of a single polling booth with an American flag next to it.

Fade to black.

Cheney & Neocons Considered Killing American's in Pretext to Attack On Iran

Julia — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:12:49 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slgBrbNXrbs

I can't believe that Cheny is VP of the US!

The growing battle over who speaks for the US Jewish community on foreign policy issues

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:16:30 EDT

Neocon Flap Highlights Jewish Divide
by Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe

A mushrooming media controversy pitting neoconservatives against a prominent Jewish-American political commentator could mark a new stage in the growing battle over who speaks for the US Jewish community on foreign policy issues, particularly regarding the Middle East.

Time columnist Joe Klein's accusations that Jewish neoconservatives, who played a particularly visible role in the drive to war in Iraq and have since pushed for military confrontation in Iran, sacrificed "US lives and money...to make the world safe for Israel," have spurred angry charges of anti-Semitism and personal attacks from critics at such neoconservative strongholds as the Weekly Standard, National Review, and Commentary..........

ENTIRE ARTICLE- http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lubanlobe.php?articleid=13232

ALERT re: McCain's VP Choice: Ben Stein recommends Karl Rove

suecdsmls — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:02:04 EDT

CNN published a scary interview yesterday with Ben Stein (the comedian, yes, but also an economist and lawer). Ben Stein is actually suggesting that McCain choose KARL ROVE as VP. Oh, my God; another 4-8 years of creepy Neocon rule....

This would be one of the worst possible ways in which to extend the Bush dynasty forever..... Jenna Bush, you know, was recently married in Texas to a young Republican who had interned with Karl Rove.

Susan Schneider, MD, MLS

Waterford, CT

suecdsmls@yahoo.com

Pschiatrists for Obama

Mothers for Obama

Connecticut for Obama

Boomers for Obama

Guest Column of Sat. July 19, 2008, Newberg Oregon

CORPSMAN1 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:48:02 EDT

The following Guest Column was published in our local Newberg Graphic newspaper in response to an article reprinted by a fellow at the Rand Institute who spoke to the great danger Iran posed:

To the editor,

It is no wonder the United States has become so despised by most of the world when we have fools such as Elan Journo, a Resident Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, rewriting history, with more fear mongering thrown in for good measure, all while spreading lies as he did in the Guest Opinion in the Saturday, July 12th Newberg Graphic. His is not an objective essay, despite the purported purpose of the Rand Institute. Rather, Journo is just another "reich-wing" shill for the current administration itching for more war.

Alex Haley wrote, "History is written by the winners," but this doesn't give everyone with a title and a by-line license to delete and omit facts from history. (And that includes this writer. Do your own research.)

Journo begins his "history lesson" of U.S./Iranian relations with the hostage crisis of 1979-81. This is not without purpose, however, because in doing so Journo slyly omits -- while still warning us of the grave threat Iran poses to the U.S. -- the no-so-insignificant point that in 1953 British and American intelligence operatives, with Eisenhower's approval, overthrew the democratically-elected administration of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and his cabinet, replacing an elected government with a pro-Western dictatorship that ruled Iran with an iron hand for another quarter century, and this is thought to have contributed to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah and his replacement with the anti-Western Islamic Republic. (Gee, ya think?) You heard me correctly. Our nation, which recently embarked upon spreading democracy in the middle east at the point of a gun (or so the current administration would have us believe since they couldn't find any WMD), actually did a very similar thing in Iran in 1953.

So before we begin believing people like Journo, or even the Bush administration which is just chomping at the bit to "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" (the way a very sick John McCain jokingly sings it), we'd better get our facts straight before we are suckered into another war of aggression by the freaks in the White House and end up with tens of thousands more U.S. dead, many more horribly wounded and disfigured for life, and our nation even more bankrupt (both morally and financially) than now.

Our country has become something almost unrecognizable by those who value the Constitution. We'd better pay attention because -- and here's a real fear factor for you -- there are six very dangerous months of this current administration left in which anything can happen. I leave you with the September 16, 2007, too-late lamentation of Alan Greenspan: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." We can no longer afford be too late in our recognition of the consequences of the extremely dangerous course on which our nation continues. ~Bruce Freeman, Newberg, Oregon, resident

To paraphrase Shakespeare...

Beth from ColoradObama — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:33:27 EDT

Methinks we doth protest too much.

I'm all about protecting Senator Obama and promoting positivity and his real message and policies. I'm sick to death of the Republican attack machine, and I'm sure as hell going to do what I can to make sure this country doesn't collectively make the same aggregious mistakes made in 2000 and 2004. But I think we are becoming increasingly overreactive to the media CRAP and I'm afraid this might hurt us in the longrun. Please--if you've taken the time to read this far, please read the entire post. Humor me. Bear with me.

Why do I care about politics?

Michael Hubbard — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:39:37 EDT

Some folks wonder why I stay on politics and can't seem to get off since apparantly I'm trying to learn to be a singer
and musician. Well, we are in dire straights in this country and none of the ruling class seems to be taking it very seriously. Even the pundits don't seem very interested in the actual problem. But I've got to say, I do love my podcasts.
Especially RFK, Jr's radio show Ring of Fire. I do love a good talk radio show, but all the right wingers nowadays are just coming off as pissed off that people aren't doing what they say. They're still getting tons of listeners, but not a lot of
doers. I appreciate the fine feedback I've been getting from you all that have fedback on the demos I've put up. Of course they don't sound good. They're not really supposed to at this point since I'm just getting started teaching myself how to sing, record and master the recordings. Yes I do sometimes sneak them onto my radio program at MFVRadio. But am I so political lately?

I run a small, very small, usually just a one man operation type electrical contracting company. I get calls
from guys who have been electrician's helpers for years not just looking for work, but desparate for it sometimes
more than two times a week. People are hurting out there, this is not the time to be playing games with our
livelihoods! I mean, you can hear the desparation in some of these guys voices. These are solid working men with families
that have always been able to provide for their families. Not rich, just somewhere in what used to be the middle
class. Luckily the IBEW local 558 has been looking for apprentices in our area so I usually send them that way.

The middle class has been hurt badly by these Republican years. They knew poverty was only a paycheck away
10 years ago, now they are seeing it happen firsthand. I've felt it too, in 2005 I had a 6 month old carpet cleaning
company that was doing well and showing promise, was building business and doing well when gas hit about $2.50 per gallon
in the summer of '05 business slowed, when it hit $2.75 later in the summer (not much later either) the phones went
silent. three months later the business went belly up and I went back into doing electrical work before all the money
ran out. For about the next two years business went fine. It had it's ups and downs but people seemed to be settling into
coping with the higher gas prices. Until the price hit about 3.50 per gallon, that's when work for even electricians
got scarily slow. Now that the price is hanging out at $4.00 per gallon once again the phones fall silent. Oh sure
I still get some work but people aren't doing things they want to do, they are doing things they have to do. Ususally
a repair for safety issues, not a repair because they want a plug to work that hasn't been, usually now it's a
call to repair a plug because it caught on fire or something like that. Not meaning to just mouth off about my business
troubles. I am an electrical contractor so when I get work I do alright, but I know that if my customers can't
afford to hire me, it won't be long until I'm as desparate as those guys that call me now. I also know that any
work that comes open, especially if it pays a livable wage that there will be in the neighborhood of 150 to 300
people fill out applications for that ONE job. The chances of someone seeing your application much less getting an
interview can only be measured by sheer luck.

Sure I'm mad about the way things are going. If you're sitting somewhere air conditioned reading this, just remember,
they've been chipping away at the foundation for years now. If the foundation fails, then the whole building collapses.
That means that you're probably going to be the next group that gets hurt badly by these anti-social corporate boys
that occupy the west wing of the White House right now.

The only real short term solution is to force our corporations to bring the jobs back! China and India's call for
more oil will then slow down, and as for short term I don't really know how short that would be but they sent the
jobs away and outsourced the rest in pretty much less than ten years, I suppose we could get them back as fast
if not faster. Put the people back to work at the rate they were at least closer to, or if the big conglomorates
don't want to pay more, find a way to lower prices. But they won't go for at either since it would put a serious
cramp in the CEO's ability to buy his 3rd yacht or yet another second house in the Caribean or Blue Ridge Mountains
or wherever the trendy place to have a place is these days.

Will there be a nuclear attack before the election?

SITALCES — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:12:33 EDT

The Bush administration will attack Iran in the near future with tactical nuclear weapons, because it is the only way Bush can rescue Israeli and US control in the Middle East and maintain power in the homeland.For all practical purposes the U.S. has lost the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan simply because they cannot win it without a massive infusion of troops that don't exist. Bush has tried to make Afghanistan a problem for NATO to resolve, but Europe does not see any point in sacrificing men or money for the sake of an American/Israeli hegemony. The NATO troops in Afghanistan are experiencing substantial casualties from the Taliban which are not reported in the media.

The " Bush coalition" has evaporated or rather the illusion of its existence has faded. Pervez Musharraf, the American puppet ruler of Pakistan, did not even want to join the coalition and had to be persuaded by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage. This man told the Pakistani intelligence director that either you are with us or be prepared to be bombed back to the Stone Age. Dawn Wire Service reported from Islamabad on Sept. 16, 2001 that the phrase used was: "'Pakistan has the option to live in the 21st century or the Stone Age." The fact that Musharraf volunteered this information on American television is a good indication that Bush has lost the war.

Bush's defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel's defeat by Hezbollah in Lebanon have shown that the military firepower of the U.S. and Israeli armies, though effective against massed Arab armies, cannot defeat guerillas and insurgencies. The Taliban have regained half of Afghanistan. The king of Saudi Arabia has told Bush that the ground is shaking under his feet as unrest over the American/Israeli violence against Muslims builds to dangerous levels. Our Egyptian puppet sits atop 100 million Muslims who do not think that Egypt should be a lackey of U.S. hegemony. The king of Jordan understands that Israeli policy is to drive every Palestinian into Jordan.

Bush is incapable of recognizing his mistake. He can only escalate. Plans have long been made to attack Iran. The problem is that Iran can respond in effective ways to a conventional attack. Moreover, an American attack on another Muslim country could result in turmoil and rebellion throughout the Middle East. This is why the neocons have changed U.S. war doctrine to permit a nuclear strike on Iran.

Neocons believe that a nuclear attack on Iran would have intimidating force throughout the Middle East and beyond. Neocons have also concluded that a U.S. nuclear strike on Iran would show the entire Muslim world that it is useless to resist America's will. Neocons say that even the most fanatical terrorists would realize the hopelessness of resisting U.S. hegemony. The vast multitude of Muslims would realize that they have no recourse but to accept their fate.

Revised U.S. war doctrine concludes that tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons cause relatively little "collateral damage" or civilian deaths, while achieving a powerful intimidating effect on the enemy. The "fear factor" disheartens the enemy and shortens the conflict.

A nuclear attack on Iran will destroy the Nonproliferation Treaty and send countries in pursuit of nuclear weapons. We will see powerful nuclear alliances, such as Russia/China, form against us. Japan could be so traumatized by an American nuclear attack on Iran that it would mean the end of Japan's slavish relationship to the U.S.

There can be little doubt that the aggressive U.S. use of nukes in pursuit of hegemony would make America a pariah country, despised and distrusted by every other country. Neocons believe that diplomacy is feeble and useless, but that the unapologetic use of force brings forth cooperation in order to avoid destruction.

The U.S. military's opposition to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran has been overcome by the civilian neocon authorities in the Bush administration. Desperate to retrieve their drive away from defeat in Iraq, the neocons are betting on the immense attraction to the American public of force plus success. It is possible that Bush will be blocked by Europe, Russia, and China, but there is no visible American opposition to Bush legitimising the use of nuclear weapons at the behest of U.S. hegemony.

It is astounding that such dangerous fanatics have control of the U.S. government and have no organized opposition in American politics.

Revised from:Paul Craig Roberts

I personally believe that the Bush administration must be checked now, before it is too late. Our only hope is the formation of a Senate committee to investigate the allegations of a nuclear attack against Iran. The United States Congress must act swiftly to monitor all the operations of the executive office under an emergency act. Our lives depend on such action. The existence of our country has been placed in jeopardy and it is up to the people to protect it.

Neoconservatism Dies Hard

Jake Bell — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:17:10 EDT

I just finished watching the Daily Show's report about the Bush Administration's refusal to open an email from the EPA detailing its plans to clean up air pollution. In short, the Supreme Court told the EPA to come up with a way to reduce greenhouse gases and share the plan with the White House, which it did in an email. However, the White House,not wanting to implement the new plans, chose to ignore it, openly telling the EPA as much.

This kind of defiance has become the hallmark of the current administration. Economists say cutting taxes during war time is financial suicide? They don't know anything about money. Laws say we can't torture people we suspect of being terrorists or hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime? Get the lawyers to find a loophole in that Magna Carta. Military leaders say the troops are weary and spread to thin? Let's send even more of them into Iraq. Scientists agree stem cells could cure innumerable ailments and that global warming could have catastrophic effects? Just pray a little harder.

Supporters of the Bushies embraced that definace and, in many ways, it was reassuring to uninformed right wingers, but I couldn't understand why until I thought of it all as a screenplay.

Remember in Die Hard when the police chief told Bruce Willis to get out of the way so they could negotiate with Hans Gruber? And that smug, coke-snortin' dude from his wife's office party gets shot on the radio because Bruce Willis won't hand over the detonators? And the FBI guy blames Bruce Willis for the whole thing? As an audience member, we know the FBI and the police chief are clueless about just how evil Hans Gruber really is, so we get mad at the authority figures and cheer the rogue Bruce Willis even though the fringe supporting character is dead.

This is how the neocons have viewed 95% of the last seven-and-a-half years.

Bush has conducted himself as though on January 20th, 2009, he's going to toss Osama bin Laden off the roof of the White House and come stumbling out to Pennsylvania Avenue wrapped in a blanket with Laura Bush, who will punch Keith Olbermann in the face on live TV. Then Saddam Hussein--who wasn't really dead yet--will burst out of the White House only to be gunned down by Dick Cheney (who hasn't until that moment been able to fire his gun, ever since accidentally riddling an old man's face with buckshot).

Sadly, the FBI and the police captain in Die Hard weren't telling Bruce Willis that bending over backwards to accommodate oil companies would cripple our economy or that starting a war that would net billions of dollars for the company Reginald Vel Johnson used to be CEO of would ruin America's international image for generations to come. He wasn't openly defying sensible requests because he had his own agenda. When the bad guys shot the coke-sniffin', cliche 1980's douchebag, he didn't send in fifty more coke-sniffin', cliche 1980's douchebags to bring order to the 30th floor even though most of the coke-sniffin', cliche 1980's douchebags were on their third or fourth tours of Nakatomi Plaza.

McCain and the Neocons

robe — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:19:47 EDT

Senator Obama needs to continue to make the Bush connections. Here is an excerpt from an article that connects McCain's to both Bush and the PNAC (neocons).

"Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy spokesman, in 2002 founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which agitated for the US invasion that was launched in 2003.

Scheunemann and Robert Kagan, another McCain advisor, head the neoconservative Project for a New American Century, which takes a hawkish line on foreign policy issues.

Their influence helps explain McCain's hardline stance on Iraq, where he has vowed to keep American troops for "as long as it takes," as well on Iran, Cuba, North Korea and even Russia, which he wants tossed out of the Group of Eight industrialized nations club over an erosion of democracy."

(Bush Neocons Ever Present in McCain's Camp, Raw Story, 06-23-08)

TELECOM IMMUNITY MUST NOT BE GRANTED

DONALD S METZ — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:43:12 EDT

Obama supports the FISA compromise bill but says he will work in the Senate to strip a retroactive immunity provision. This is an issue that Obama must put all of his efforts behind - stripping the FISA Bill of the Teelecommunications immunity clause. Failure to do this will be an enormous slap in the face of all Americans who voted to give Democrats a majority in the House and Senate and who are now supporting Obama for President.

If the Senate Democrats cave on this legislation and give telecoms retroactive immunity for illegally wiretapping us all, then they will be saying freedom and civil liberties mean very little to them. It will make them no better than the neocon Republicans and could cost them dearly in the fall. In many ways it makes them worse.

There is only one thing worse than a corrupt and immoral Republican - that is a spineless Democrat who enables them. No one likes a coward - are you listening Pelosi, Hoyer and Reid???

I cannot stress this enough. The rape of our constitution by the neoconservatives who continually ask us to surrender our freedoms in exchange for our security is destroying what our men in uniform are so valiantly fighting for. If Amerrica does not respect its own constitution anymore, the terrorists have already won. They have made us more like them and less American.

Giving retrocactive immunity to people who willfully violated the law is never a good idea. It encourages more of the same in the future. Barack - this is the most important challenge you have faced to date. DO NOT LET US DOWN!!

As a non-American...

John from WillObamaWin.com — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:51:42 EDT

As a non-American, I watched the events of September 11, 2001 with horror, as did millions of us. We were all Americans that day and in the days that followed. Some in the world celebrated. I wondered why...

But as Bush and the Butchers began to rev up their Iraq invasion plans, I began to understand. WMDs? Saddam connected to Bin Laden? Are these lies ... from an American government?

The Americans don't lie, do they? Do they? I saw an Arab Iraqi engineer who had worked on Iraq's WMD programme years earlier say that he KNEW that no work had been done on this since just after the first Gulf War. He KNEW. Now I KNEW. So Bush knew, didn't he? So did Cheney, Rumsfeld and all those other neocons. And still they were going to attack Iraq?

Now I KNEW something else: Some in the world don't trust America. "Some in the world celebrated", I said above. Now I KNEW why!

It's not you, the folks, it's them, the Butchers. OK, there were attacks on the US long before 2001. But why make things one million times worse? One of the 'hit songs' of Bush and the Butchers was "It'll Make America Safer". What? WHAT? It multiplied the dangers for all of us. All of us.

In Iraq, the Iraqi Museum was ransacked, there was widespread looting, there was Abu Ghraib and civilians killed in the hundreds of thousands. Another Vietnam developed.

Then I really KNEW. America has to change it's ways. Then Barack came along. 'Nuff said. It's obvious. That's why I'm here ... from Europe.

A non-Empire Foreign Policy

Bugsy Bucco Polemicist — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:19:58 EDT

The presumed acceptance that troops could and should be maintained around the world gives cover for those interests that drive the military-industrial complex. Except for the tensions that are still unstable on the Korean Peninsula, there are few good reasons to have large garrisons of troops and sailors in other coutries. Even the deployment in Korea has the troops as the trip-wire for an intentional or accidental calculation.

The indispensability of the United States as Earth-enforcer has diminished as the the strategic and tactical calculus has changed narmed conflicts. The U.S. can be a logistical partner, but as events have proven since Korea, that these local conflicts need a diplomatic, not a military presence. The diplomatic presence is NOT humongus embassies but as a moderator and facilitator for opposing parties or opposing views to have a forum for resolution.

The continued pawning of our armed forces as the key piece and reason for our foreign policy reflects and imperial design rather than a republic in partnership with other sovereign nations for prospective multilateral or humanitarian actions.

Bugsy

How the Power Greedy Stole My Country

Inspired in Florida - a Recovering Republican — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:01:15 EDT

'One NATION, under God, with liberty and Justice for ALL.' We have one chance to take back our country...one chance, in Novmber.

We should be very afraid. Over 4000 US troops dead. Over 1 million innocent Iraqi civilians dead. All in the name of greed..and guns.

It was NEVER about WMD. It was NEVER ABOUT 9/11. It was NEVER ABOUT TERRORISM. It was NEVER about Nation building by spreading freedom and democracy...it was about EMPIRE BUILDING.

It was always about Military Imperialism...US military expansionism which negatively effects ordinary citizens, and enriches the US Military industry and defense contractors. And that's EXACTLY WHAT WE'VE SEEN

It goes back to a 1998 letter written to Clinton by the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, promoted by McCain, Lieberman and Chalabi.

Randy Scheunemann, CLI's executive director, is former chief national-security adviser to U.S. Senator Trent Lott who has also worked for Donald Rumsfeld as a consultant on Iraq policy. While working for Lott in 1998, Scheunemann drafted the "Iraq Liberation Act" that authorized $98 million for the Iraqi National Congress.

Randy Scheunemann IS ALSO MCCAIN'S SENIOR ADVISOR ON FOREIGN POLICY

The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) was described as a "non-governmental organization" which described itself as a "distinguished group of Americans" who wanted to free Iraq from Saddam Hussein. In a news release announcing its formation, the group said its goal was to "promote regional peace, political freedom and international security through replacement of the Saddam Hussein regime with a democratic government that respects the rights of the Iraqi people and ceases to threaten the community of nations." It had close links to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), important shapers of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Joseph Lieberman, U.S. Senator (honorary co-chair)
John McCain, U.S. Senator (honorary co-chair)

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a American neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., co-founded as "a non-profit educational organization" by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in early 1997. The PNAC's stated goal is "to promote American global leadership

PNAC is motivated by an imperial agenda of US military expansionism, which will bring negative side effects to ordinary citizens of the United States, while it enriches some industries: "defense contractors who sup on American tax revenue will be handsomely paid for arming this new American empire."

Rebuilding America's Defenses "was developed by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Libby, and is devoted to matters of 'maintaining US pre-eminence, thwarting rival powers and shaping the global security system according to US interests.

In relation to the Persian Gulf, citing particularly Iraq and Iran, Rebuilding America's Defenses states that "while the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification [for U.S. military presence], the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein" and "Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region."

One of the core missions outlined in the 2000 report Rebuilding America's Defenses is "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars."

Scotty M.

robe — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:25:38 EDT

Now is the time for Senator Obama and company to START the attack on the Neocons. When one of Bush's own exposes them, he now has to take the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of Scotty M. and connect McCain's 100 years statements.

He has to educate Americans about their theories of spreading democracy throughout the world via our military. Those who don't understand this need to learn what the main goal was in invading Iraq.

This is perfect!

McCain Worse Than Bush?

signsSansSignifieds — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:54:46 EDT

Impossible, you say...

George from Wilmette, IL writes:

“I have a hard time believing that McCain is worse than Bush. His most off-the-wall ideas will never be put into effect. I have to agree with Senator Obama that any of the three credible possibilities to become our next president would be an improvement over Bush."

I realize that it’s a hard thing to wrap one’s mind around. After all, Bush is a nightmare wrapped in a catastrophe inside a disaster. It’s a real challenge to think of a single thing Bush has touched that hasn’t turned into a flaming wreck. The idea that John McCain, with his carefully cultivated image as a maverick, could be somehow worse than that requires imagination of even worse problems than we’ve faced for the past 7 years. What could be worse? is the obvious question that comes to mind.

END THE CRUSADE II

robe — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:32:59 EDT

We need to start presenting John McCain as a neocon. We also need to begin to draw the negative similarities between both of our opponents. You are the only one who was against the war from the beginning.

Senator, please get back on the -- how you are the only candidate for change. The exit polls indicate how "change" was most important to the voters.

We need to to pay attention to the exit polls.

END THE CRUSADES

robe — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:37:43 EDT

Hillary and Bill and John McCain are neocons who will continue a series wars under the guise of spreading democracy. Senator Obama needs to explain to the general public, in simple terms, exactly what that foreign policy is all about.

I don't expect everyone will read the PNAC's lengthy report, but I'm hoping someone (Mr. Obama are you listening?) will, at least, outline their agenda and present it. That outline needs to also present the connection to the monotheists' internal wars.

KEITH OLBERMANN Responds to Rick Basora Request - SHAWN HANNITY and FOX Owner RUPERT MURDOCH Now Featured on WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

Rick — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:11:01 EDT

GREETINGS OBAMITES!
Some of you know that I lead an ongoing "charge" against the insidious journalism practiced by FOX NEWS and SHAWN HANNITY. I have taken it personally, as have many of you, when these Neoconservatives apply these dangerous, misleading and offensive practices to our candidate. While the attached letter was sent to over 80 newspapers, Editors and pundits, I took the liberty of forwarding it, separately, to Mr. Keith Olbermann and COUNTDOWN at MSNBC. I did so, because I know NO OTHER PUNDIT who could vocalize the feeling of indignation that so many of you have told me that you have felt. It warranted, I felt, the castigating tone that is one of Mr. Olbermann's "to the point" hallmarks. I was honored in that he conveyed my message "loud and clear." This, my friends, was beyond imperrative, because Mr Hannity's incidiary tone could have reasonably been expected to incite radicals who, in an a "John Wilkes Booth-like" show of mutated patriotic bigotry, could very well attempt to do PHYSICAL harm to Senator Barack Obama or to members of his family. Keith, however, took it ONE STEP FURTHER, and exposed the expressions of SANCTIONED HATE that have come forth from FOX owner, RUPERT MURDOCH and the patrons of his public-opinion boards and blogs. I have posted the TWO relevant links in the "boxed" section immediately following this one, as well as at the points of relevance in the main body of this piece for easy reader correlation. It may interest you to know that, yesterday, it was made clear, that Democratic Governor, and staunch Clinton supporter, Governor Ed Rendell, of Pennsylvania, has endorsed…FOX NEWS! (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23889508#23889508). The Governor described it as "a fair and balance"news service. Keith immediately bestowed upon him the same "testimonial" earned only by the members of that most "exclusive of exclusive," "members only" order; THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD!

Subsequent letter: Shawn Hannity: STOP the anti-OBAMA “FOX-VIRUS” NOW (http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/rickbasora/gGBnpb)

KEITH OLBERMANN presents: THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

                 March 19, 2008 -  Hannity's Site Features Outrageous Obama Posts
                 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23716643#23716643

                 March 21, 2008 - FoxNews.com HATE SPEECH
                 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23716643#23750779

From: Rick Basora [the_dragonwolf@comcast.net]

Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 11:23 AM

To: KEITH OLBERMANN & COUNTDOWN [countdown@msnbc.com]

Subject: FW: SHAWN HANNITY - THE PINNACLE OF IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM AT ITS WORST

The very “worstest” person in the world

Keith, You are my absolute “bestest PUNDITARIAN hero.” I’ve circulated this “modestly” but my deepest hope is that it gets to you. Kindly note the “Olbermannisms.”

SIC’EM!

Nothing can excuse the extremes of irresponsible journalism exhibited by Shawn Hannity and FOX on the 3/9/08 edition of Hannity's America. There, he deliberately attempted to vilify a Presidential candidate with tabloid-worthy disinformation. This is how tyranny is raised; by feeding it. I wrote this letter and sent it to the journalistic world in order to expose this un-American "jester". I am forwarding it to the respectable and credible Keith Olbermann, in hopes that he may use it as a "belt" with which to "spank" this buffoon for discrediting your legitimate profession of "informers of the world." If this “Roman Circus” of an election campaign succeeds in its apparent objective of robbing America of its “popular” will, let all Americans know, that Shawn Hannity stands charged and convicted of complicity.

From: Rick Basora
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 11:26 PM

To: Hannity@foxnews.com; Feedback@foxnews.com; yourcomments@foxnews.com

Cc: 'americasnewsroom@foxnews.com'; 'Myword@foxnews.com'; 'Friends@foxnews.com'; 'Jamie@foxnews.com'; 'Newswatch@foxnews.com'; 'Foxreport@foxnews.com'; 'Atlarge@foxnews.com'; 'JER@foxnews.com'; 'Lineup@foxnews.com'; 'Martha@foxnews.com'; 'Ontherecord@foxnews.com'; 'Special@foxnews.com'; 'Cavuto@foxnews.com'; 'editor@ajr.org'; 'mailto:editor@ajr.org'; 'rrieder@ajr.org'; 'rsmolkin@ajr.org'; 'tkunkel@ajr.org'; 'executive-editor@nytimes.com'; 'managing-editor@nytimes.com'; 'washington@nytimes.com'; 'national@nytimes.com'; 'metro@nytimes.com'; 'news-tips@nytimes.com'; 'public@nytimes.com'; 'president@nytimes.com'; 'CEO-CarolineLittle@wpni.com'; 'executive.editor@washingtonpost.com'; 'wsj.ltrs@wsj.com'; 'a.murray@wsj.com'; 'a.latour@wsj.com'; 'd.pettit@wsj.com'; 't.cullen@wsj.com'; 'j.fry@wsj.com'; 'darren.mcdermott@wsj.com'; 'ombudsman@washpost.com'; 'metro@washpost.com'; 'national@washpost.com'; 'tips@tribune.com'; 'ctc-tribletter@tribune.com'; 'publiceditor@tribune.com'; 'EAchenbaum@tribune.com'; 'ctc-editor@tribune.com'; 'bdold@tribune.com'; 'TMcNulty@tribune.com'; 'gdelama@tribune.com'; 'JCWarren@tribune.com'; 'aaguilar@tribune.com'; 'aahmed@tribune.com'; 'KAlleynemorris@tribune.com'; 'LBAnderson@tribune.com'; 'rranderson@tribune.com'; 'kataiyero@tribune.com'; 'NBendavid@tribune.com'; 'lbowean@tribune.com'; 'SChapman@tribune.com'; 'LCohen@tribune.com'; 'JChase@tribune.com'; 'JCrewdson@tribune.com'; 'HDardick@tribune.com'; 'MDorning@tribune.com'; 'askamy@tribune.com'; 'national@latimes.com'; 'tvtimes@latimes.com'; 'op-ed@latimes.com'; 'letters@latimes.com'; 'info@ap.org'; 'mediainquiries@msnbc.com'

Subject: SHAWN HANNITY - THE PINNACLE OF IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM AT ITS WORST

To Shawn Hannity and to the Management of Fox Broadcasting;

Last night, as I watched Shawn Hannity, on Hannity’s America, corrupt the minds of “the corruptible” with a program that tendered accusations of “terrorist” affiliations between Barack Obama and William Ayers of the former Weathermen, I was reminded of the collective “brainwashing” that, as a child, I was taught to believe was a characteristic only of “evil” nations like the former Soviet Union and of former Nazi Germany. As a child, I recall being assured by my 6th grade teacher that such a robbery of the human “will” would never be tolerated in America. FREEDOM, she said, could only be achieved by a people who were empowered with TRUTH as the element that, along with a sense of identity, made valid their RIGHT to CHOOSE it. Last night, your Shawn Hannity usurped that right from those Americans susceptible to the inflammatory; from those vulnerable to the politics of FEAR and from those ignorant BY CHOICE to the REALITIES of the Presidential candidates at large.

Mr, Hannity, I am compelled to remind you that, despite your reluctance, we still reside in a country where the rule of law prescribes that a person is innocent, and not by association, until proven guilty. I feel further obligated to engage your cynical racial and religious bigotry by reminding you that, if African Americans find refuge in institutions and churches whose very names herald a predictable WELCOME, it is because the sins of our fathers have forced them, however subconsciously, to find refuge in an identity. (Keith Olbermann's observations - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23716643#23750779) No, Mr. Hannity, a church with a name that speaks to a black congregation is not a racist statement; it is a statement of fraternity that you and our forefathers insisted on disallowing white America from fully participating in…and yet…they welcome us. Further, you “mouth” the word “Muslim” as if it were the very “sound” of social and religious leprosy. You might recall that legitimate Muslims are a peaceful people in non-complicity with the fanatics that did us and still wish us harm. Your message, sir, is one that has a history of inciting lynch mobs and, just in case Jenna, LA taught you nothing, ALL OF AMERICA will put that mob DOWN. While I am certain that Senator Obama would strongly sensor my statement, I will ask you that, if you must hate the mutations of religious principal, then, Sir, hate the religion of The Crusades, of the THOUSAND YEARS of European Inquisition, of Waco, Texas and of The Salem Witch Trials. Hate whatever fed the narcissism of Reverends Jim Baker and Jim Jones and you can start by hating the perversion of 10,000 pedophile priests, the Institutions that fed them our children. Hate those who sanctioned their rape and that, in doing so, stripped many of us of the comfort that one should find in the words “In God We Trust.”

As it has become commonplace with radical Conservatives, last night Mr Hannity invoked the late President Reagan and his anecdote of a father who, back in the days of the “cold war”, declared that he would prefer to see his two little daughters dead…rather than to see them live under a faithless and godless Communist regime. With that story, Mr. Hannity attempted to rouse his audience to a “pitch” of nationalistic outrage. It appeared to me that he was IMPLICIT LY charging Senator Obama of practicing a communist-like godlessness. Allow me to remind FOX and Mr. Hannity that it was Mrs. Hillary Clinton’s Wellsley College thesis honoring her ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT mentor, Saul Alinsky and his MARXIST teachings, that earned her the appellative “Alinsky’s daughter.” The document necessitated its being SEALED to the public by a 1993 special Presidential order issued by her husband who considered it a political liability because of its “radical” content. This document was “unsealed” in 2001 after the Republicans took office and is currently available for your scrutiny and review. What happens to human convictions after 40 years have passed is known only to those minds that contain them and to God Himself who made them; not to Shawn Hannity.

He went on to showcase President Reagan in a clip from his “Star Wars” speech, where he indicated that America was “a country that did not start wars.” Gentlemen, if this was Shawn Hannity’s way of weaving “illusions of war-mongering” with which to surround a Presidential candidate who stands on a platform of DIALOGUE as his preferred weapon of pre-emption of war, you may want to advise him about the fact that we ARE, in fact, in a war unjustly started; a war that he endorsed and that he is a member of the political party that started it. Senator Obama was the legislator who attempted unsuccessfully to galvanize an effective movement to avoid it. History has proven him to have been STRATEGICALLY CORRECT and no degree of Mr. Hannity’s resenting him for it will grant him access to that elite minority reserved solely for the JUDGEMENTALLY SOUND.

As the pariah of last nights “Hannity’s America” unfolded, it was clear that Mr. Hannity extended warm and humane concern for the life and wellbeing of one Britney Spears. In stark contrast, was his misguided and malicious presentation of the character, principals, religion and persona of one Barack Obama; a legitimate Senator of the United States, respected by what most polls reflect as the majority of our country’s electorate. In doing so, this contemporary carpetbagger has insulted the MILLIONS whose voices are the mandate that drives his candidacy. Hannity has slapped the essential face of Democracy; of the decent journalists and pundits of FOX and of our media. He attempted a coupe on the people’s right for TRUTH to be allowed to guide the American Electoral process. Most of all, Mr. Hannity has provided the most educated minds in America, described by Frank Newport of the Gallup Organization as being the core of Senator Obama’s support, with irrefutable evidence that any legitimate opposition to Senator Obama’s Presidential bid can only find momentum in feeble minds inspired by synthesized realities delivered by “tabloid” journalists beholden to tyrants who, regardless of their party affiliation, are certainly worthy of the descriptive, “MONSTERS.” It is no wonder, gentlemen that we are referred to in Europe as “hypocritical contradictions of ourselves.”

Perhaps, Mr. Hannity, you may want to discuss issues that are current and of legitimate concern to America. I might suggest that you begin with programming devoted to the more than TEN MILLION DOLLARS in Saudi, Middle Eastern and Taiwan contributions received by the Clintons and disclosed by The Washington Post, The NY Times, Jihad Watch and more. Some good questions to begin with would be; how will this impact “President” Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy decisions regarding the war on terror if she and her husbands personal interests are funded by the world’s largest supporters of it? How will this Saudi endorsement affect her right to speak to women’s rights? How will Taiwan’s “offering” temper her engagement of China as the possible new “owner” of America? There are REAL issues, I assure you, that scream for addressing; issues of far greater nobility than your need for tabloid ratings. If, however, that is all that we can expect from you, you might consider a piece on the story that just broke on New York’s Governor Spitzer admitting to involvement in a prostitution ring. It is, as you know, yet another scandal from a State plagued by the seemingly polar opposites of unspeakable hardship and of chronic corruption by its politicians. That should be sordid enough to satisfy your personal and/or political libations, Sir.

Take heed of these, my closing words. The irresponsibility of Shawn Hannity’s “rabble rousing journalism” could very well inspire right wing radical extremists to commit acts in PATENT SUPPORT of his bastardized rant. Because you, Mr. Hannity, are in contempt of the most basic of professional standards and of the ethics of personal decency, we, the majority of America’s electorate hold you and The Fox Network personally responsible for any such actions and further hold you accountable for promoting them and for inspiring them. (KEITH OLBERMANN'S observations - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23716643#23716643)

If we are to learn the lessons willed to us by the American “giant” that was Robert F. Kennedy, it behooves us to recognize that YOU, Mr Hannity, are THE EXTREMIST.

“What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.” Robert Francis Kennedy

Rick Basora

Fort Lauderdale, FL

Shawn Hannity: STOP the anti-OBAMA “FOX-VIRUS” NOW

Rick — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:03:29 EDT

From: Rick Basora [the_dragonwolf@comcast.net]

Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 6:00 PM

To: letters@time.com; WebEditors@newsweek.com; Letters@newsweek.com; letters@usnews.com

Cc: 'Atlarge@foxnews.com'; 'Hannity@foxnews.com'; 'JER@foxnews.com'; 'Lineup@foxnews.com'; 'Martha@foxnews.com'; 'Ontherecord@foxnews.com'; 'Special@foxnews.com'; 'Cavuto@foxnews.com'; 'yourcomments@foxnews.com'; 'editor@ajr.org'; 'rrieder@ajr.org'; 'rsmolkin@ajr.org'; 'tkunkel@ajr.org'; 'president@nytimes.com'; 'executive-editor@nytimes.com'; 'managing-editor@nytimes.com'; 'washington@nytimes.com'; 'national@nytimes.com'; 'metro@nytimes.com'; 'news-tips@nytimes.com'; 'public@nytimes.com'; 'letters@nytimes.com'; 'CEO-CarolineLittle@wpni.com'; 'executive.editor@washingtonpost.com'; 'letters@washpost.com'; 'ombudsman@washpost.com'; 'metro@washpost.com'; 'national@washpost.com'; 'wsj.ltrs@wsj.com'; 'a.murray@wsj.com'; 'a.latour@wsj.com'; 'd.pettit@wsj.com'; 't.cullen@wsj.com'; 'j.fry@wsj.com'; 'darren.mcdermott@wsj.com'; 'tips@tribune.com'; 'ctc-tribletter@tribune.com'; 'publiceditor@tribune.com'; 'EAchenbaum@tribune.com'; 'ctc-editor@tribune.com'; 'bdold@tribune.com'; 'TMcNulty@tribune.com'; 'gdelama@tribune.com'; 'JCWarren@tribune.com'; 'aaguilar@tribune.com'; 'aahmed@tribune.com'; 'KAlleynemorris@tribune.com'; 'LBAnderson@tribune.com'; 'rranderson@tribune.com'; 'kataiyero@tribune.com'; 'NBendavid@tribune.com'; 'lbowean@tribune.com'; 'SChapman@tribune.com'; 'LCohen@tribune.com'; 'JChase@tribune.com'; 'JCrewdson@tribune.com'; 'HDardick@tribune.com'; 'MDorning@tribune.com'; 'askamy@tribune.com'; 'national@latimes.com'; 'tvtimes@latimes.com'; 'op-ed@latimes.com'; 'letters@latimes.com'; 'ctc-TribLetter@Tribune.com'; 'info@ap.org'; 'headlinenews@cnn.com'; 'mediainquiries@msnbc.com'; 'letters@msnbc.com'; 'Nightly@NBC.com'; 'Dateline@NBCUNI.com'; 'transnet87@aol.com'; 'countdown@msnbc.com'; 'race08@msnbc.com'; 'Inquirer.Letters@phillynews.com'; 'views@phillynews.com'; 'letters@post-gazette.com'; 'opinion@tribweb.com'; 'mm-tips@mediamatters.org'; 'barrett_td@yahoo.com'; 'wholesalershoppers@yahoo.com'; 'karendillard@hotmail.com'; 'dplouffe@barackobama.com'; 'john@greenskydesign.com'; nancymillinger@theamericaninitiative.org; Blackberry Muppet; Mutt; Sis; Cousin Jeannette; Marmaduke's Office; Marmaduke ; Mike Beauregard; Rick Basora ; Tuneta; Gizmo Chula; Broomrider; The Wielder of the Wand; Wiccan Bride of the Elder God

Subject: Shawn Hannity - STOP the anti-OBAMA FOX VIRUS NOW

Dear Mr. Hannity;

By now you must certainly be aware that a NATIONAL MOVEMENT is in motion against you and against what America has come to know as THE FOX VIRUS that comes forth from the RADICAL EXTREMIST NEO-CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN mouthpiece that you and FOX have become. Presenting our voice to the media of America now comes in the form of the Robert Greenwald film “Fox Attacks Obama (Spreading the Virus)” which, as you can see, is the envelope sent “special delivery” and containing the national petition now underwritten by moveon.org and their Political Action’s Adam Green.

After the travesty of ethical journalism perpetrated by FEMA on October 26, 2007, where it hosted its own “staged” televised news conference reporting on the state of EMERGENCY SERVICES to victims of Hurricane Katrina, it was brought to the attention of America that, not only was the person addressing this “skit” a FEMA official, but so were those asking the questions who, while posing as reporters, were exposed by Al Kamen of The Washington Post in his article FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA. The fact that the article alleges that you carried this charade LIVE, and then passed on the video to MSNBC and other news outlets, renders FOX Television, and its agents, complicit in the efforts of what Christy Hardin Smith, of FIREDOGLAKE, calls The Department of Planting Your Own Propaganda And Hoping No One Notices assigned to the Bush administration.

Mr. Hannity, neither you, nor your colleague-at-arms, Rush Limbaugh, can be allowed, by a nation on the very brink of social, economic, political and global chaos, to continue manipulating puppet strings, pushing buttons and pulling levers the outcome of which you CLEARLY know nothing about. Mr. Limbaugh’s disgracefully titled attempt at hijacking the current Presidential election has earned him the dubious distinction of being named WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23908634#23908634) by MSNBC's KEITH OLBERMANN. It now appears on his own website with the headline Operation Chaos Under Assault.

As you frantically attempt to continue the milking of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy, synthetically created by your Conservative minions, you appear less than pathetic before an increasingly intolerant nation that, as you can see, by Senator John McCain’s attainment of the honorable position of The Republican Presidential Nominee, America has declared you and your Neoconservative “cult”, politically, philosophically, morally and subversively UNDESIREABLE.

I, and America, continue to observe your frenzied contribution to the engineering and staging of a premeditated and choreographed conspiracy aimed at discrediting the legitimacy of Senator Barack Obama as a Presidential candidate, as well as the WONDER of the grass-roots movement taking shape around him. We watch in dismay as you question your guests, carefully selected to provide the most desirable answers for the damming of the voice of HOPE that FOX radio has described as “sounding like Hitler.” Yet, when Democratic Analysts, Tanya Acker and Bob Beckel, as well as your own Alan Colmes, have asked you questions as simple as “So, are you saying that every child whose parents took them to the Trinity United Church of Christ is, therefore, disqualified from growing up to aspire to one day becoming President of the United States,” you conspicuously, and at every turn, refuse to answer the question. You are fully aware that, answering that question, honestly, would reduce you to the hypocritical contradiction of yourself that you are. Take note, Mr. Hannity, your refusal to respond implicitly convicts you in spite of you.

I was held in utter disbelief … which then slowly grew to anger when, last night, you summoned former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, to join in the spreading of THE FOX VIRUS. I found two things to be in poignant opposition with your intention of subverting America. The first was Mr. Gingrich’s repeated insistence that he did NOT question Senator Obama’s integrity, his loyalty to America or his non-alignment with Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s apparent anti-American rants. Later in the same program, and despite your best efforts, this same opinion was echoed, with even greater emphasis and eloquence, by Senator John McCain, who insisted on addressing issues of legitimate concern to our country and clearly, refused to participate in your scripted outcomes. You must, as a consequence, Sir, be torn between wondering if the walls of correctness are closing in on you or whether they, in fact, are spreading so far apart that your only company would be the members of your own League of Liars.

The second observation, born of your program’s intentions, last night, was your patent set-up of “JUDGMENT” as the supposedly flawed characteristic displayed by Senator Barack Obama in his choosing to continue to attend Wright’s Trinity church. You spoke the word “JUDGMENT,” with diacritical accentuation, no less than a dozen times and consistently modified it with adjectives such as “flawed,” “poor,” etc in your transparent attempt to pre-empt the Senator’s platform of SOUND JUDGEMENT in the furtherance of his Presidential bid. I will excuse myself from redundancy and I will quote my own words from the letter that, on March 16, 2008, I sent to you and Fox Management titled SHAWN HANNITY - THE PINNACLE OF IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM AT ITS WORST:

“Gentlemen, if this was Shawn Hannity’s way of weaving “illusions of war-mongering” with which to surround a Presidential candidate who stands on a platform of DIALOGUE as his preferred weapon of pre-emption of war, you may want to advise him about the fact that we ARE, in fact, in a war unjustly started; a war that he endorsed and that he is a member of the political party that started it. Senator Obama was the legislator who attempted unsuccessfully to galvanize an effective movement to avoid it. History has proven him to have been STRATEGICALLY CORRECT and no degree of Mr. Hannity’s resenting him for it will grant him access to that elite minority reserved solely for the JUDGEMENTALLY SOUND.”

Last night, what achieved the “apex of the offensive,” Sir, was that you utilized former Speaker, Newt Gingrich, to assist you in making the point of presenting Senator Obama’s judgment as, somehow, flawed. Might I remind you that Newt Gingrich headed the 1998 charge to impeach President William Jefferson Clinton on charges stemming from the extramarital affair that he sustained with one Monica Lewinsky. In a March 8, 2007 Associated Press article featured on your very own FOX News, titled "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Acknowledges ...Having Affair During Clinton Impeachment," we are presented with an interview with James Dobson of Focus on the Family that reveals the following:

“Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.”

"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton's 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials."

Sir, translated into common English, this says…There are rules and laws that apply to ALL, including the President of The United States, but that I, because my name is Newt Gingrich, a Neoconservative, reserve the right to exempt myself from them. No, Mr. Hannity, your show, your network, your self-righteous, pontificating ploys called supporting guests, your intentions, your manic obsession with imposing dynastic rule… but most of all, YOU… are tacitly UNACCEPTABLE as is your effort to present this morally diseased neoconservative “fowl” as someone qualified to “judge the judgment” of EAGLES. I am taking the liberty of forwarding this correspondence to Representative Henry Waxman, who, last year moved to have yours and Mr. Rush Limbaugh’s actions investigated, as well as to Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Kevin Martin, who, I am advised, has been put on notice of the nature of your endeavors, that now appear to many, as being contrary to our very national security.

America will NEVER belong to your minion of disguised patriotic indigence, Sir, and, least of all, to YOU. I would suggest that you listen to a song, considered by many of my generation as an American Anthem, and that I recently sent to the Democratic Superdelegates as well. In ’64 Bob Dylan spoke of times that were “a-changing. I submit to you, Shawn Hannity, that there is an unmistakable wind of CHANGE in the air and MILLIONS, like me, bear witness to its hopeful reality. To you, and to those like you, frantically trying to stop this will be like trying to stop the wind. We have paid for this campaign and for this movement, unlike the politicians of yesteryears and of today, with our own monies, 5, 10, 25 dollars at a time. I know that you must resent the force that such a movement presents. Your colleagues must , as well, fear the threat to their lifetime relationships with lobbyist dollars that will scatter like fallen leaves on this wind. Yes, Mr Hannity, make no mistake. More than times a-changing, Sir, the times …THEY DUN HAVE CHANGED!

                          Come senators, congressmen
                          Please heed the call
                          Don't stand in the doorway
                          Don't block up the hall
                          For he that gets hurt
                          Will be he who has stalled
                          There's a battle outside
                          And it is ragin'.
                          It'll soon shake your windows
                          And rattle your walls
                          For the times they are a-changin'.

From the song The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan (1964)

Complete lyrics - http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/times.html

Listen to it here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vou4qUu5YY

RICK F. BASORA

Fort Lauderdale, FL

The_Dragonwolf@comcast.net http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGR355

SHAWN HANNITY - THE PINNACLE OF IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM AT ITS WORST

Rick — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:21:03 EDT

From: Rick Basora [the_dragonwolf@comcast.net]

Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 11:26 PM

To: 'Hannity@foxnews.com'; 'Feedback@foxnews.com'; 'yourcomments@foxnews.com'

Subject: SHAWN HANNITY - THE PINNACLE OF IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM AT ITS WORST

To Shawn Hannity and to the Management of Fox Broadcasting;

Mr, Hannity, I am compelled to remind you that, despite your reluctance, we still reside in a country where the rule of law prescribes that a person is innocent, and not by association, until proven guilty. I feel further obligated to engage your cynical racial and religious bigotry by reminding you that if African Americans find refuge in institutions and churches whose very names herald a predictable WELCOME, it is because the sins of our fathers have forced them, however subconsciously, to find comfort in an identity. No, Mr. Hannity, a church with a name that speaks to a black congregation is not a racist statement; it is a statement of fraternity that you and our forefathers insisted on disallowing white America from fully participating in…and yet…they welcome us. Further, you “mouth” the word “Muslim” as if it were the very “sound” of social and religious leprosy. You might recall that legitimate Muslims are a peaceful people in non-complicity with the fanatics that did us and still wish us harm. Your message, sir, is one that has a history of inciting lynch mobs and, just in case Jenna, LA taught you nothing, ALL OF AMERICA will put that mob DOWN. While I am certain that Senator Obama would strongly sensor my statement, I will ask you that, if you must hate the mutations of religious principal, then, Sir, hate the religion of The Crusades, of the THOUSAND YEARS of European Inquisition, of Waco, Texas and of The Salem Witch Trials. Hate whatever fed the narcissism of Reverends Jim Baker and Jim Jones and you can start by hating the perversion of 10,000 pedophile priests, the Institutions that fed them our children. Hate those who sanctioned their rape and that, in doing so, stripped many of us of the comfort that one should find in the words “In God We Trust.”

As it has become commonplace with radical Conservatives, last night Mr Hannity invoked the late President Reagan and his anecdote of a father who, back in the days of the “cold war”, declared that he would prefer to see his two little daughters dead…rather than to see them live under a faithless and godless Communist regime. With that story, Mr. Hannity attempted to rouse his audience to a “pitch” of nationalistic outrage. It appeared to me that he was IMPLICIT LY charging Senator Obama of practicing a communist-like godlessness. Allow me to remind FOX and Mr. Hannity that it was Mrs. Hillary Clinton’s Wellsley College thesis honoring her ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT mentor, Saul Alinsky and his MARXIST teachings, that earned her the appellative “Alinsky’s daughter.” The document necessitated its being SEALED to the public by a 1993 special Presidential order issued by her husband who considered it a political liability because of its “radical” content. This document was “unsealed” in 2001 after the Republicans took office and is currently available for your scrutiny and review. What happens to human convictions after 40 years have passed is known only to those minds that contain them and to God Himself who made them; not to Shawn Hannity.

He went on to showcase President Reagan in a clip from his “Star Wars” speech, where he indicated that America was “a country that did not start wars.” Gentlemen, if this was Shawn Hannity’s way of weaving “illusions of war-mongering” with which to surround a Presidential candidate who stands on a platform of DIALOGUE as his preferred weapon of pre-emption of war, you may want to advise him about the fact that we ARE, in fact, in a war unjustly started; a war that he endorsed and that he is a member of the political party that started it. Senator Obama was the legislator who attempted unsuccessfully to galvanize an effective movement to avoid it. History has proven him to have been STRATEGICALLY CORRECT and no degree of Mr. Hannity’s resenting him for it will grant him access to that elite minority reserved solely for the JUDGEMENTALLY SOUND.

As the pariah of last nights “Hannity’s America” unfolded, it was clear that Mr. Hannity extended warm and humane concern for the life and wellbeing of one Britney Spears. In stark contrast, was his misguided and malicious presentation of the character, principals, religion and persona of one Barack Obama; a legitimate Senator of the United States, respected by what most polls reflect as the majority of our country’s electorate. In doing so, this contemporary carpetbagger has insulted the MILLIONS whose voices are the mandate that drives his candidacy. Hannity has slapped the essential face of Democracy; of the decent journalists and pundits of FOX and of our media. He attempted a coupe on the people’s right for TRUTH to be allowed to guide the American Electoral process. Most of all, Mr. Hannity has provided the most educated minds in America, described by Frank Newport of the Gallup Organization as being the core of Senator Obama’s support, with irrefutable evidence that any legitimate opposition to Senator Obama’s Presidential bid can only find momentum in feeble minds inspired by synthesized realities delivered by “tabloid” journalists beholden to tyrants who, regardless of their party affiliation, are certainly worthy of the descriptive, “MONSTERS.” It is no wonder, gentlemen that we are referred to in Europe as “hypocritical contradictions of ourselves.”

Take heed of these, my closing words. The irresponsibility of Shawn Hannity’s “rabble rousing journalism” could very well inspire right wing radical extremists to commit acts in PATENT SUPPORT of his bastardized rant. Because you, Mr. Hannity, are in contempt of the most basic of professional standards and of the ethics of personal decency, we, the majority of America’s electorate hold you and The Fox Network personally responsible for any such actions and further hold you accountable for promoting them and for inspiring them. If we are to learn the lessons willed to us by the American “giant” that was Robert F. Kennedy, it behooves us to recognize that YOU, Mr Hannity, are THE EXTREMIST.

Rick Basora

Obama Foreign Policy Dream Ticket: Edwards and S Power

blu — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:17:21 EST

I'm starting to visualize my Obama dream ticket - Edwards comes on as VP and Samantha Power comes aboard as Secretary of State. Wow! - this is the ticket we need to overthrow the Neocon coup that had taken over our country. Edwards was one of the only presidential candidates to go after the Neocons by name - if anybody missed his white hot but underreported U of Iowa Speech 11 05 07, here's a couple of paragraphs and the link - it's well worth the read and showed true bravery:
http://johnedwards.com/news/press-releases/20071105-a-new-strategy-for-iran/

"George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the neocon warmongers used 9/11 to start a war with Iraq and now they're trying to use Iraq to start a war with Iran. And we have to stop them. We owe our American heroes -- the men and women in our armed services who are fighting so bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan today -- no less."

"In the spring of 2002, the nation was struggling to recover from the devastating terrorist attacks of 9/11. At the same time, a group of Bush Administration neoconservatives, like Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, were strategizing for ways to start a war with Iraq. And suddenly, instead of reacting to 9/11 by working to protect America from terrorists, they saw a political opportunity to promote their right-wing ideological agenda and demonize anyone who disagreed with them.

"And here's what you need to know about George Bush's foreign policy -- it's written by these neocons, lock, stock, and barrel."

I love that Samantha is at the Kennedy School of Government along with Stephen Walt - Walt being the coauthor of the seminal work on 'The Israel Lobby' along with Mearsheimer. Samantha is a perfect choice for stopping our neocon-led phoney war on terror EVERYBODY KNOWS is really a 'war of terror for Israel' but just about everybody in academia or politics simply don't have the cojones to say. Edwards and Samantha are visionary enough to have the guts to overcome the 'Israel Lobby's' kibosh on discussing these truths.

THEY ARE FEASTING ON THE MANA THAT'S IN BOUNTIFUL SUPPLY, FOR THEY ARE DWELLING IN NEOCON LAND!

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:27:41 EST

White House Leak: Cheney's Plan for Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Missile Strike

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:23:18 EDT

ARTICLE- http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/66157?page=entire

Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran: Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:36:14 EDT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2127115,00.html#article_continue

Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran

· Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out
· President 'not prepared to leave conflict unresolved'

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger
Monday July 16, 2007
The Guardian

While Dick Cheney, left, favours military threats, Condoleezza Rice, centre, prefers diplomacy. George Bush, right, has sided with Cheney. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.

The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."

Article continues The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself."

Almost half of the US's 277 warships are stationed close to Iran, including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time.

No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route.

Sporadic talks are under way between the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, on the possibility of a freeze in Iran's uranium enrichment programme. Tehran has so far refused to contemplate a freeze, but has provisionally agreed to another round of talks at the end of the month.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said that there are signs of Iran slowing down work on the enrichment plant it is building in Natanz. Negotiations took place in Tehran last week between Iranian officials and the IAEA, which is seeking a full accounting of Iran's nuclear activities before Tehran disclosed its enrichment programme in 2003. The agency's deputy director general, Olli Heinonen, said two days of talks had produced "good results" and would continue.

At the UN, the US, Britain and France are trying to secure agreement from other security council members for a new round of sanctions against Iran. The US is pushing for economic sanctions that would include a freeze on the international dealings of another Iranian bank and a mega-engineering firm owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Russia and China are resisting tougher measures.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/how-much-capital-will-che_b_56414.html

Robert Naiman| BIO

How Much Capital Will Cheney Have to Push War With Iran?

Posted July 16, 2007 | 02:23 PM (EST)

The Guardian reports today that "the balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favor of military action" before President Bush leaves office. Not surprisingly, the Guardian attributes this shift to aggressive lobbying by Vice-President Cheney.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

So, the question of whether the United States attacks Iran before President Bush leaves office may boil down to this: how much capital will Dick Cheney have?

And this allows us to pose the question of Cheney's potential impeachment in a very practical way.

Critics of the idea of impeaching Cheney have a point. They argue that impeaching Cheney will require 218 votes in the House, and given the difficulty in rounding up 218 votes in the House for say, cutting off funding for continuing the Iraq war, or explicitly preventing an attack on Iran without Congressional authorization, where are those 218 votes going to come from?

But the progressive minority in the House can do things to undermine Cheney's capital that don't require 218 votes. For example, they could co-sponsor the Articles of Impeachment against Cheney. The third article charges that Cheney "has openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States." Currently, there are 13 co-sponsors.

In contrast, 98 Representatives co-sponsored resolutions against war with Iran, there are 73 members of the Out of Iraq Caucus, and 70 House members of the Progressive Caucus.

Many of these Representatives would have no reason to fear any backlash from their constituents for supporting Cheney's impeachment. Recent polls suggest a majority of Americans favor Cheney's impeachment, and it's a reasonable expectation that the support for Cheney's impeachment is even higher in the strongly Democratic districts that most of these Members represent.

If by the end of the summer, the Articles of Impeachment against Cheney had 50 co-sponsors, the capital of Cheney would be significantly decreased. And the danger of war with Iran would be correspondingly diminished.
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"SUBMITTED FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION" by John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta