Political Pundit Place

Urgent: Youth Need Your Help To Get Recruiters Out

2009-03-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

In the wake of protests of 6 years of the Iraq occupation, we are receiving requests from students and teachers to bring the We Are Not Your Soldiers Tour to their schools. We can't get to them without your help! $12,000 is needed by April 15th. Donate today to bring Iraq & Afghanistan veterans into high schools across the country.

Thousands of students need to be reached in the next two months, encouraged to not join the army and to forge a student movement to get recruiters out of the schools as part of halting all the wars.

This tour is needed to reach these youth now:

Friday, Barack Obama announced he is sending 4,000 troops to Afghanistan in addition to the 17,000 troops he announced last month. This is not change! This is an escalation of a crime against humanity. What are these troops being sent to do? What are the youth being recruited for? The murder, rape, and torture of innocent men, women, and children; to kick down doors and terrorize families... all so that the U.S. can tighten its stranglehold on the land, resources, and shipping routes of Middle East.

Where will these troops that Obama is sending come from? The military recruiters have budget of billions to recruit youth who are in high school now. They roam the hallways and lunch-rooms, call students at home, and set up at malls where kids hang out. The military cannot fight this expanded "war on terror" in Afghanistan without this fresh cannon fodder. Military recruiters now have almost unlimited access to reach high school students because the "No Child Left Behind" law ties funding for schools to whether recruiters can get to students.

Since November 24 the WANYS Tour has been to x amount of high schools and x colleges reaching x amount of students. The tour has hit the Bay Area, LA, Chicago, New York, . Most of the schools have been predominently Black and Latino and almost all of them have been working class - exactly the students that the recruiters are targeting. When recruiters come into their school, students need to know exactly what they are being recruited for. Not freedom, not democracy, and not better "career options."

Speakers on the tour give students reasons not to go into the military, and help organize collective resistance to recruiters' lies by spreading visible mass resistance to joining this military as a part of stopping this war of terror for empire.

Classroom presentations include a short presentation by a World Can't Wait youth organizer and an Iraq and/or Afghanistan war veteran, a 10-minute video clip of testimony by Iraq veterans from the March 2008 Winter Soldier hearings about what they witnessed and perpetrated and footage of high school students protesting military recruiters along with an open discussion. At the end we conduct a short survey to give us a sense of what young people are thinking.

This takes funding. As a movement of the people we rely entirely on your support. Speakers are ready, students want us to come, and we are ready to organize another even stronger round especially with the latest intolerable surge in Afghanistan, but we can't send the tour out until we have the money….$12,000 are needed by April 15th to cover transportation/lodging costs, provide modest stipends to the speakers, produce organizing kits for students, promote the tour on Facebook and other youth oriented sites and create T-shirts and stickers to spread the word.

Donate generously so that World Can't Wait can continue this tour reaching thousands more students before the end of this school year with the truth of what they are being recruited for!

To learn more about the tour, watch videos, and meet the vets visit wearenotyoursoldiers.org

Sincerely, Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait

P.S. This tour and the Iraq Vets that are a part of it are extremely precious in a time where so many have given up the fight to stop these wars. Support them - spread the resistance - donate generously today to help us raise the $12,000 we need by April 15th.

$12,000 for travel & stipends needed by April 15 to schedule the last 2 months of high school classes around the U.S.

From a New York City teacher after the tour:

At the time the "We Are Not Your Soldiers" tour visited, my students were preparing to take the New York State Regents exam. Many of my students have failed the exam at least two times. As their last shot before making the decision to drop out or get a GED, I was concerned that failing the regents exam would encourage some of my students to join the military instead.

Matthis Chiroux, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and Elaine Brower, member of the World Can't Wait, hosts of the "We Are Not Your Soldiers" tour, presented a compelling excerpt of the "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan Eyewitness Accounts" testimonials which summoned the visual and emotional interest of otherwise unresponsive youth. Matthis engaged the students with his own personal recollection of the military. He asked important questions, revealing truths of the racism of the war on Iraq, and connected to the personal lives of the students, while Elaine Brower offered the perspective of a mother, a point of view many of my students are sensitive to having been raised by only their mothers.

After the World Can't Wait presentation, it was apparent that my students were affected. The next day one student showed me a poem he wrote about a young boy from the ghetto enlisting in the military and dying, another asked for a World Can't Wait T-shirt, and yet another, who had wanted to join the military, handed me a recommendation form for a vocational school. Others are still lost forever to the military but the "We Are Not Your Soldiers" tour offered the education American youth really need and that more teachers need to be more conscious of.

Request for the tour from a student:

My school has an immense problem with military recruitment - they are here every day, in the classrooms, in the lunchroom. At least 1/4 of our graduates join the military, as this is a fairly rural community and people don't believe they have many options.

I want to request details of the tour, and how to arrange a visit, what it would cost, etc. The school has agreed to permit it (grudgingly), but it would not be an easy audience.

Any information you could send would be extremely helpful. Thank you. Jenny E.

Spanish court may indict Bush officials

2009-03-31T16:34:00.000-07:00

Spanish Court May Indict Bush Officials

The indictment and prosecution of Bush administration officials is becoming a reality.

"A Spanish court has agreed to consider opening a criminal case against six former Bush administration officials," the Associated Press confirmed.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas, former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes are under scrutiny for sanctioning torture in violation of the Geneva conventions. Under Spanish law, the courts have jurisdiction to prosecute war criminals and torturers anywhere in the world. A judge has already called on prosecutors to review the charges.

Clearly, millions of people worldwide stand with the mission of IndictBushNow and all those who are fighting for accountability. Click this link to make a donation to support the ongoing work of the indictment movement.

This world wide movement will lead to criminal prosecution for the crimes committed by Bush, Cheney and others. This first step is a direct result of the pressure brought by you and millions of other people in the United States and around the world.

You can help make this movement grow by encouraging your friends to sign the referendum calling for the indictment of Bush and Cheney at http://www.indictbushnow.org/. Join with signers from all over the United States and all over the world. Spread the word by circulating this email, and putting the web button on your blog, MySpace or facebook page.

Your donation provides the support needed to power the demand to Indict Bush into a national and worldwide force. Please click here to support these efforts with a generous donation now.

-- All of us at IndictBushNow.org

From Street Action to Legislative Action

2009-03-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

Message "Indict Bush Now" Rings Out from Coast to Coast
Now: from Street Action to Legislative Action

The IndictBushNow movement made major headway on Saturday. Thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the country to call for an end to Bush's most criminal legacy: the Iraq war. Many of the participants carried "Indict Bush Now" placards and chanted "Bring the Troops Home -- Indict Bush Now!"

These were terrific first events for the IndictBushNow movement, showing that the people of this country will neither forgive nor forget the disastrous and deadly Bush administration.

To help this movement grow, please take a moment and make a generous donation now, so that we can make the case for indictment in the mass media, in the halls of Congress, at every every anti-war demonstration, and in the growing movement for economic justice.

It's time to flood Congress with letters demanding a Special Prosecutor to pursue the indictment of Bush and other high officials from his administration. Over 200 organizations have united to press for a Special Prosecutor. The human misery caused by the economic crisis is only growing and the unimaginable suffering caused by the Bush administration's intentional policies of torture and wars of aggression continues.

We must force the media to report on the culpability of Wall Street's political enablers -- namely, the Bush administration. After charging over a trillion dollars on the nation's credit card -- to go to war and to give kickbacks to his Wall Street friends -- Bush simply jumped the bill. He has to be held accountable.

Now is the time to take a minute and send a letter to your Congressional representatives. Last week a leaked memo from the International Red Cross detailed the barbaric and sadistic acts of torture by the Bush administration. Insist that your Congressional representatives carry out their sworn duty to defend the Constitution by supporting the call for a Special Prosecutor for Bush. There are currently different committees and investigations reviewing the Bush administration's defense of torture and its politically-biased appointees in the judicial branch. But fact-finding missions are not enough. We need prosecution. We need indictment.

Click this link to send a letter to your Congressional representative. It only takes a minute and is very easy to do.

We're on the right path -- now let's keep up the good work.

-- All of us at IndictBushNow.org

Action Page: Investigate Cheney's Personal Assassination Ring

2009-03-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

Remember when former Vice President used to claim that he constituted
a peculiar fourth branch of government unto himself, claiming
executive privilege as part of the executive branch, while with the
next breath refusing to obey executive branch record keeping laws?
Now we beginning to find out what that fourth branch of government
actually was . . . his own private worldwide assassination ring.
Somehow we don't recall the U.S. Constitution providing for such a
fourth co-equal branch of our government.

Even those who argue that the president has the power as "commander
in chief" to commit war crimes with impunity, do not argue that the
Vice President should be able to operate his own war crimes franchise
independent of the president. And yet, according to Seymour Hersh, a
most reliable source, that is exactly what took place. Cheney was
running his own personal assassination squad, reporting directly to
himself.

Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum944.php

Is there no level of treason outrageous enough to get one of the
other two branches of government to confront these crimes against the
Constitution? The justice department must immediately appoint a
special prosecutor. Failing that, Congress must launch its own
investigation, as called for by the always heroic Dennis Kucinich, to
get to the bottom of this. Please submit this action page to speak
out to them all.

We are doing alerts on many other issues as you all know. For
example, continuing to press for single payer health care which the
overwhelming majority favor if asked, and to derail proposals that
would actually harm the safety of our food supply even more, while we
work on our own positive alternatives. But the staggering criminality
of the previous administration cannot be swept under the rug without
endorsing even worse abuses for the future, so we must stay on that
as well.

One need only observe how quickly Congress can move when there is
real public outrage, like over the AIG bonus scandal, to realize that
all we need to do is speak out in sufficient numbers to instantly
have any policy change we want. We did not even have to do an alert
on that one. They say these were "retention" bonuses. We happen to
think the kind of retention those recipients deserve is arrest and
incarceration, for fraud on a scale that dwarfs even Madoff.

This is just a way of saying the purpose of this resource has always
been to encourage more people to speak out more often. When we are
most successful in doing that, we DO have policy victories. All we
have to do to achieve more such victories is to believe that our
voices really can have an impact, and to act on that belief.

From time to time we will get an email from someone including
language like "they'll never listen to us" or something equally
defeatist as that. What we must understand is that we have only one
real enemy, our OWN defeatism, for that is all that stands between us
and generating policy moving numbers with every alert. Those evil
forces that work against the people's interest DEPEND on such voices
of despair and resignation to do most of their dirty work for them.

So let us take advantage of every possible opportunity to speak out.
We created this resource so that with one click you can register your
voice with all your members of Congress and other pressure points at
the same time. The more you use the resource the more we will win.
And we WILL win more and more.

We are working to pack up the next bulk shipment of the new "Convict
Dick & W" caps to go out by the end of the week, so if you have not
requested yours yet, you can use this link, and we'll get it out to
you as fast as we can.

Convict Dick Caps: http://www.peaceteam.net/convict_cap.php

Thank you for your participation.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

Urgent: Stop Corporate Fascists From Taking Over Our Food Supply

2009-03-15T15:09:00.001-07:00

We told you about this issue last week and many of you
responded. But we still need your comments with the USDA by the end
of the day, Monday, March 16, to stop the incredibly destructive
corporate scheme described below. Congress is already trying to stack
the deck so only lobbyists have a meaningful voice in this debate. We
can stop them if you speak out now.

Radio Chip Animal Identification Would Do ALL Harm To Our Real Food
Safety, And No Good

It would be too easy to blame the recent peanut panic on one criminal
corporation owner, who KNOWINGLY shipped Salmonella contaminated
product. But before that it was millions of pounds of ground beef,
and before that tomatoes all over the country, and on and on. And
when you ask where is all this horrible filth coming from, with a
over a million cases of Salmonella in the U.S. alone every year, the
answer is self-evident. It's the huge factory farms that overflow
with seas of untreated animal waste, that then spill into our food
supply, including through our agricultural plant crop fields.

We have a lot of work to do to clean up this giant mess, but the
first thing we have to do is STOP a lunatic boondoggle being pushed
by these same corporate interests, to force radio computer chip
implanting of literally every farm animal in the country, EXCEPT on
their own factory farms. It is absolutely nothing but a further
attempt to drive small family farms out of business, who in fact are
our safest source of reliably clean food now.

The proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) would force
even the smallest healthy farms to buy expensive new computer
tracking equipment, and potentially would subject them to
gestapo-like tactics by the USDA if they are in even slight technical
non-compliance. And all this just to fatten the pockets of the RFID
chip manufacturers, and to make it LOOK like something is being done
to make our food safer.

The special one click action page below will send your personal
message to all your members Congress and also directly to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture who is trying to rush this thing through
without adequate scrutiny.

Stop NAIS Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum942.php

This action is especially urgent because the U.S. House Agriculture
Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry is holding a hearing on
NAIS implementation on March 11, and many farm activists fear the
plan is to push it out for a full vote in Congress faster than a
greased pig, before we the people have a meaningful chance to speak
out.

You may not have a House member on that particular subcommittee, but
you can pressure your own House member to tell they colleagues on it
that there is massive constituent pressure against NAIS. For the
especially mobilized on the action page above there is a link to the
phone numbers for those on the subcommittee, because they are in fact
your representative as an American citizen if they sit on it.

Below are some more extensive truth points you can select from in
drafting your comments or on the phone, again linked to from the
action page above.

NAIS was designed by NIAA (the National Institute of Animal
Agriculture), a corporate consortium consisting of Monsanto,
industrial meat producers such as Cargill and Tyson, and surveillance
companies such Viatrace, AgInfoLink, and Digital Angel. The NAIS
scheme fits agribusiness, biotech, and surveillance companies to a T:

1) They are already computerized, and they engineered a corporate
loophole: If an entity owns a vertically integrated, birth-to-death
factory system with thousands of animals (as the Cargills and Tysons
do), it does not have to tag and track each one but instead a herd is
given a single lot number.

2). NAIS will only be burdensome and costly (fees, tags, computer
equipment, time) to small farmers which helps push them out of
business, thus leaving more market to giant agribusiness.

3) Agribusiness wants to reassure export customers that the US meat
industry is finally cleaning up its widespread contamination. NAIS
would give that appearance ... without incurring the cost of a real
cleanup.

4) NAIS will allow total control over the competition: Owners of even
a single chicken would be required to register private information,
the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of their 'premise'
and if any animal leaves its 'premise', the owner will be required to
obtain an ID number for it and have the animal microchipped. All
information, including 24 hour GPS surveillance would be fed into a
vast corporate data bank, allowing for ease of false slaughter to
hide true problems or to substitute biotech's genetically engineered
animals.

5) NAIS may allow plundering of farmers through required DNA samples:
DNA samples would be invaluable to Monsanto and biotech corporations
genetically engineering animals. Farmers who raise heritage breeds
would have no say in how their distinct DNA would be used and to the
sole profit of biotech companies.

6) The advantage for the surveillance companies is obvious:
Compulsory tagging of 6 million sheep, 7 million horses, 63 million
hogs, 97 million cows, 260 million turkeys, 300 million laying hens,
9 billion chickens, and untold numbers of bison, alpaca, quail, and
other animals -- and new animals being born, means a massive
self-perpetuating market.

Please take action now to stop this insanity. Our health and our
lives depend on it.

Stop NAIS Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum942.php

The health claims for NAIS are a sham though fear of disease is used
to advance it. NAIS does not touch the contaminated source of E.coli,
salmonella, listeria, mad cow, and common meat-borne diseases - the
inherently unhealthy practices (mass crowding, growth stimulants,
feeding regimens, rushed assembly lines, poor sanitation, etc.) of
industrial-scale meat operations. Upton Sinclair's "Jungle" all over
again. NAIS will do nothing to stop these practices. Moreover,
tracking ends at the time of slaughter, yet it's from slaughter
onward that most spoilage occurs. But NAIS does not trace any
contamination after slaughter.

The self-serving Agribusiness NAIS plan distracts from their
contaminatory practices, while targeting hundreds of thousands of
small farms, homesteaders, organic producers, hobbyists ... and maybe
even you. NAIS's purpose is to advance corporate monopoly over all
food in the US. And with it, they have laid the ground work.
Kissinger said if you control food, you can control people. This
immense corporate plan to control of our food supply and eliminate
our independent farmers is, at it heart, the most severe threat
possible to our democracy itself.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

Rove and Miers Under Oath; Wexler Supports Commission

2009-03-09T04:21:00.001-07:00

Great news on our shared campaign for accountability:

ROVE AND MIERS UNDER OATH
In an agreement reached yesterday, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers have finally agreed to testify under oath and under the penalty of perjury regarding the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. Rove will also be questioned regarding the politically motivated prosecution of former Gov. Donald Siegelman of Alabama.

This is a validation of your efforts and a victory for accountability and the legitimate power of Congress. I am grateful for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s and Chairman Conyer's efforts and I strongly agree with her statement yesterday that “no one is above the law and Congressional subpoenas must be complied with.”

Please know that under this agreement the Judiciary Committee has reserved the right to have public testimony from both Karl Rove and Harriet Miers. I expect the information we receive from the testimony of these individuals will open a window of truth into the decisions made by Bush Administration on many areas where wrongdoing has been alleged.

Click Here to Support My Progressive Outreach

MY SUPPORT FOR THE SPECIAL COMMISSION INVESTIGATION OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
In further news, I have added my name as a cosponsor to Chairman Conyers’ bill, HR104, which establishes a special commission to investigate Bush Administration abuses. If enacted, this legislation would be a major step forward in our search for the truth.

This legislation would investigate the broad range of Bush Administration policies including the secret detaining of prisoners by the intelligence community, the use by US personal of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” that are not authorized by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, “ghosting”, extraordinary rendition, domestic warrantless electronic surveillance, and all other policies or issues that the established Commission deems essential and relevant.

This is an important piece of legislation and the issues at stake are large enough that we can’t merely sweep them under the rug.

Lastly, thank you for the tremendous response to the survey in my last email. The top three issues were (Economy, Accountability, and Healthcare each with about 18% of the vote). When asked to pick your single most important issue, 24% chose the Economy (the highest one).

I will stay in touch.

As always, this national outreach is paid for out of my campaign account. If you would like to contribute to this outreach and new initiatives to drive our progressive agenda, please click here.

Best wishes,

Congressman Robert Wexler

DONATE

Yes, Actually, We Do Need To Bring Back The Fairness Doctrine

2009-03-09T03:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago all of the monolith of right wing radio was
literally hysterical about the possibility that the Fairness Doctrine
might be brought back. And then all of a sudden on Feb 26, 2009, with
no other warning, a nauseatingly named and so-called "Broadcaster
Freedom Act" was passed as an amendment to the DC voting rights bill
in the Senate. It happened so fast that none of the congressional
bill tracking sites have an update on this yet.

We're of the opinion that the handful of hostile corporations who
have such a death grip on our political speech right now don't need
any more "freedom" to suppress even paid commercials they don't agree
with, and to coordinate secret advertiser boycotts of the few
progressive outlets in the so-called "free" market. The only point of
Broadcaster Dictatorship provision is to make the current extreme
wingnut bias of our media permanent, and to hold the DC voting rights
provision for ransom to do it.

Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum943.php

Probably never before has such a hideously misleading provision been
snuck into a totally unrelated bill on such flimsy pretext. And had
the ideological greedheads behind it not also pushed for adding the
additional groaning baggage of an enshrinement of wild west gun
ownership rights into the same bill, it might have already been
passed into law. Please contact your members of Congress with the
action page above and tell them to make sure the Broadcaster Freedom
to Monopolize Our Airwaves Act does not make it into law.

The reason why the right wing is so petrified about the return of
real fairness to our media is that it is only by perpetuating
monopoly over the major news sources that they can effectively
exclude alternative viewpoints from public debate. For example, the
widely supported (by the public) proposals for transforming our
national health care into a vastly more efficient single payer system
are not even allowed to be discussed on most outlets. It is their
last ditch attempt to stop the march of people's democracy.

Curiously, many of our progressive radio talkers seem to bend over
backwards to put an inordinate number of abusive right wing jerks on
the air, perhaps to demonstrate that eventually they can lose
arguments to loudmouths who just keep repeating the same discredited
talking points over and over, kind of a self imposed quasi Fairness
Doctrine. Or perhaps they themselves are compelled to do so by their
own corporate overlords.

But just as nobody in the right wing would ever put on anyone who was
an effective advocate to the left of them, save for an occasional
token punching bag, you can be sure NONE of the so-called liberals on
the air right now would ever put on anyone who challenged them for
taking too many right wing positions themselves. Even now, when truly
progressive candidates run for office they are literally blacked out
of coverage even on so-called progressive channels.

Only by in fact bringing back the Fairness Doctrine can we cure the
current de facto and oppressive censorship of truly progressive
views.

Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum943.php

For those of you who have already requested yours, we are pleased to
report that all the remaining ordered "Convict Dick & W" caps went
out no later than this last Friday, please allow a week or so more in
transit and we thank you for your patience, we are restocking as fast
as we can.

Speaking of the ongoing war crimes accountability movement, there
were new revelations this week of how far off the deep end the Bush
Administration had gone in laying the foundation of a permanent right
wing police state, backed by secret legal memos which members of
Congress were not even allowed to see. Now even Republicans like
Specter are admitting that a special prosecutor might be needed, but
it will ONLY actually happen if we keep the pressure up, and demand
that only deterrence can save the future of our Constitution.

And isn't it interesting how quickly a state county prosecutor jumped
up to try and crucify Roland Burris for possibly inconsistent
statements related to his recent Senate appointment? The Sangamon, IL
County prosecutor is demanding any FBI telephone transcripts of
Burris to try to drum up a perjury prosecution. Rather pales in
significance to the murder of over 4,000 American service men and
women in Iraq over a totally phony casus belli, doesn't it?

So let us keep the heat on local state prosecutors to indict Bush and
Cheney for murder as counseled by Vince Bugliosi, and you can use the
local prosecutor lookup on the page below to instantly lookup the
contact information for your own local district attorney. Remember,
they were all sent copies of the Bugliosi book courtesy of another
activist group, together with a personal letter from Vince offering
his assistance in any way.

Local Prosecutor Lookup: http://www.peaceteam.net/convict_cap.php

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If They Can Prosecute Michael Phelps They Can Sure Prosecute Bush and Cheney

2009-02-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

In light of the growing movement for county by county prosecutions of
the former murderous occupants of the White House, did you catch the
story that Richland County, SC is hell bent on prosecuting swimmer
Michael Phelps for getting photographed with a bong, and has already
arrested 8 people. If they can threaten an Olympic champion with hard
time for being in the same room with a water pipe, they can damn well
bring charges against Bush and Cheney for the senseless murder of
citizens in their own county.

On the same return page from the stop nukes & coal action page above,
you can also find the new local county prosecutor lookup, which we
are using to call, write and email local district attorneys, asking
them to bring murder charges against George Bush and Dick Cheney as
urged by Vince Bugliosi. If any resident of your county was killed a
war based on false pretenses, Bugliosi says that district attorney
has grounds to bring murder charges. At the top of all these pages,
there is a link to a terrific YouTube video you can watch on this of
Bugliosi's House testimony.

There you will also find the request form for the new "Convict Dick &
W" caps, the ones with a little embroidered cowboy hat hung on the
"W", intended to ridicule the original cowboy from Connecticut
himself, who always looked about as at home on that fake Crawford
ranch as Eva Gabor looked on Green Acres. So if you have not
requested yours yet, you can get one from the return page after you
submit the statute of limitations extension action page.

Convict Dick & W Caps: http://www.peaceteam.net/convict_cap.php

The local prosecutor initiative is an important long term back up
action, intended to keep the heat on at the same time for a special
prosecutor at the federal level.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We are not asking anyone to file a "formal" criminal
complaint yourself. Common sense tells us that a state prosecutor
will only act, in the exercise of their OWN discretion, if they
believe there is a non-frivolous case to bring. But by speaking out,
we can let them know there is community support for them to do so.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

Not one

2009-01-29T13:47:00.001-08:00

Not a single Republican voted for President Obama's economic recovery plan in the House last night. If that happens in the Senate, Obama's plan won't pass. We've got a new TV ad to win over swing-vote Republican senators. Can you donate $10?

Click Here

Did you see how many Republicans voted for President Obama's stimulus package in the House yesterday?

None. Seriously, not a single one.¹

Americans voted overwhelmingly for change in November. We voted for an end to the partisan bickering and political games that are destroying our politics. And President Obama bent over backwards to get House Republicans to craft a bipartisan bill, to no avail.

As the bill moves to the Senate, we need bipartisan support, or the stimulus won't pass. Senate Republicans need to know they have a clear choice: support a stimulus package that will put millions of Americans back to work, or continue to play the games that got us into this mess.

We've put together a powerful new ad to pressure the key senators. Can you chip in $10 to get it on the air immediately?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/recovery_ad.html?id=15461-7018451-5FmVmfx&t=3

President Obama spent hours meeting with Republican leaders personally. He made painful compromises to win them over.²

But Republicans refused to play ball. They're insisting on a plan that doesn't invest a cent in green jobs or health care or education. They just want more tax cuts for the rich and for corporations, even though that's part of what got us into this mess.³

GOP leaders will get their way—unless we can convince a few Republican senators who are on the fence.

Can you contribute $10 to our new ad to pressure swing-vote Republican senators? Click here:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/recovery_ad.html?id=15461-7018451-5FmVmfx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Noah, Daniel, Anna, Carrie and the rest of the team

Sources:
1. "House Passes Stimulus Plan Despite G.O.P. Opposition," The New York Times, January 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29obama.html

"Final Vote Results for Roll Call 46," Office of the Clerk, House of Representatives, January 28, 2009
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll046.xml

2. "Obama Tries to Bolster Republican Support For Stimulus," NewsHour, January 27, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51121&id=15461-7018451-5FmVmfx&t=5

3. "Factbox: U.S. House Republican alternative stimulus proposal," Reuters, January 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51123&id=15461-7018451-5FmVmfx&t=6

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

Olbermann's Recap of the Bush Admin Must Not Be Missed

2009-01-17T14:16:00.000-08:00

Offered with as little commentary as possible: the most astonishing and damning review of the Bush Administration ever seen, courtesy of Keith Olbermann. And half of the administration's morally negligent or even criminal activities didn't even make it into the 8-minute summary; much of the other half was mentioned only briefly.

Still, if you can bear to watch a replay of the misery through with we have suffered these last eight years, it has never been done better than this:

Transcript:
George Walker Bush.
43rd president of the United States.
first ever with a criminal record.
our third story tonight,
his presidency: eight years in eight minutes.

early in 2001 the U.S. fingered Al Qaeda
for the bombing of the USS Cole
Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke
had a plan to take down Al Qaeda.
instead by February the NSC
had already discussed invading Iraq,
and had a plan for post-Saddam Iraq.

by March 5 Bush had a map ready for Iraqi oil exploration
and a list of companies.
Al Qaeda?
Rice told Clarke not to give Bush a lot of long memos.
not a big reader.

August 6, 2001
a CIA analyst briefs Bush on vacation:
"Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."
Bush takes no action tells the briefer—quote
all right, you've covered your ass now.

next month Clarke requests
using new predator drones to kill Bin Laden
the Pentagon and CIA
say no.

September 11th
Bush remains seated for several minutes
to avoid scaring school children
by getting up and leaving.
he then flies around the country
and promises quote a full scale investigation to find
those folks who did it

Rumsfeld says Afghanistan does not have enough targets
we've got to do Iraq.
when the CIA traps Bin Laden at Tora Bora
it asks for 800 rangers to cut off his escape
Bush outsources the job to Pakistanis
sympathetic to the Taliban
Bin Laden
gets away

in February General Tommy Franks tells a visiting Senator
Bush is moving equipment out of Afghanistan
so he can invade Iraq.
one of the men who prepped Rice for her testimony
that Bush did not ignore pre 9-11 warnings
later explains quote we cherry picked things
to make it look like the president
had been actually concerned about Al Qaeda
they didn't give a bleep about Al Qaeda

July and Britain's intel chief says Bush is
fixing intelligence and facts around the policy to take out Saddam
January 03
Bush and Blair agree to invade in March
Mr. Bush still telling us he has not decided
telling Blair they should paint an airplane in UN colors
fly it over Iraq and provoke a response
a pretext for invasion

the man who said it would take several hundred thousand troops
fired
the man who said it would cost more than a hundred billion
fired
the man who revealed Bush's yellowcake lie
smeared
his wife's covert status
exposed
the White House liars who did it
and covered it up
not fired
one convicted
Bush commutes his sentence

then in Iraq, stuff happens:
Iraq's army, disbanded
the government de-Baathified
200,000 weapons, billions of dollars just
lost
foreign mercenaries immunized from justice
political hacks run the Green Zone
religious cleansing forcing one out of six Iraqis from their homes
Abu Ghraib
the insurgency
Al Qaeda in Iraq

other stuff does not happen:
WMD
post-war planning
body armor
vehicular armor

the payoff?
oil
and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies
while Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans
tries to raise their healthcare fees
blocks the new G.I. Bill
and increases his own power with the USA PATRIOT Act
with the Military Commissions Act
public orders exempting himself from a thousand laws
and secretly from the Presidential Records Act
The Geneva Conventions
FISA
sparking a mass rebellion at the Justice Department

secret star chambers for terrorism suspects,
overturned by Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
denying habeas corpus,
overturned by Boumediene v Bush.
200 renditionings
sleep deprivation
abuse

Rumsfeld warned in 2002 that he was torturing
that it would jeopardize convictions
out of 550 at Gitmo
hundreds ultimately go free with no charges
dozens are tortured
eight fatally
three are convicted

on U.S. soil twelve hundred immigrants rounded up
without due process
without bail
without court dates
without a single charge of terrorism

it wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law
he slashed regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies
appointed 98 lobbyists to oversee their own industries
weakening emission standards for mercury
and 650 different toxic chemicals
regulators shared drugs
and their beds
with industry reps
the Crandall Canyon mine owner told inspectors to back up
because his buddy, Republican Mitch McConnell
was sleeping with their boss
McConnell's wife is Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
her agency overruled engineer concerns about Crandall Canyon
and was found negligent
after nine miners died in the collapse there

Mr. Bush's hands off
as Enron blacks out California
doubling electric bills
after months of rejecting price caps Mr. Bush bows to pressure

the blackouts end

Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures
midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets
which just like Enron jack up prices to an all time high
until Congress and both presidential candidates call for regulations

and the prices fall

deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules
created a housing bubble
creating the mortgage crisis
creating then a credit crisis
devastating industries that rely on credit
from student loans to car dealers

firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush
those that did got
seven hundred billion dollars
no strings, no transparency
no idea whether it worked

unlike the auto bailout
which cut workers' salaries.
a GOP memo called it
a chance to punish unions

but Bush failed even when his party and his patrons
did not stand to profit
investigators blamed management cost cutting communication
for missed warnings about Columbia
Bush administration convicts include
sex offenders at Homeland Security
convicted liars
every kind of thief in the calendar
and if you count things that were not prosecuted
the vice president of the United States actually
shot a man in the face

the man apologized.

Mr. Bush faked the truth
with paid propaganda in Iraq
on his education policy

tried to silence the truth about global warming
rocket fuel in our water
industry influence on energy policy

politicized the truth of science at NASA, the EPA,
the National Cancer Institute, Fish and Wildlife
and the FDA

his lies
exposed by whistleblowers from the cabinet down
"complete BS" the treasury secretary said
of Mr. Bush on his tax cuts.

Rice's mushroom cloud
Powell's mobile labs
Iraq and 9-11
Jack Abramoff
Jessica Lynch

Pat Tillman
Pat Tillman again
Pat Tillman, again.

the air at Ground Zero
most responders still suffering respiratory problems.

global warming
carbon emissions
a Clear Skies initiative lowering air quality standards
the Healthy Forests initiative increasing logging
faith based initiatives
the cost of medicare reform
fired US attorneys
politically synchronized terror alerts

the surge causing insurgents to switch sides
that abortion causes breast cancer
that his first recession began under Clinton
that he did not wiretap without warrants
that we do not torture.

that American citizen John Walker Lindh's rights
were not violated
that he refused the right to counsel

heckuva job Brownie
some survivors still in trailers
New Orleans still at just two-thirds its usual population

the lie that no one could have predicted the economic crisis
except
the economists who did
no one could have predicted 9-11 except
one ass-covering CIA analyst
or thirty
no one could have predicted the levee breach
except literally
Mr. Bill
in a PSA that aired on TV a year before Katrina

Bush actually admitted that he lied about not firing Rumsfeld
because he did not want to tell the truth.
look it up.

all of it
all of it and more leaving us with
ten trillion in debt
to pay for 31% more in discretionary spending
the Iraq War
a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut

median income down two thousand dollars
three-quarters of all income gains under Bush
going to the richest one percent
unemployment up from 4.2 to 7.2 percent

the Dow, down from ten thousand five hundred eighty seven
to eighty two hundred seventy seven
six million now more in poverty
seven million more now without health care

buying toxic goods from China
deadly cribs
outsourcing security to Dubai
still unsecure in our ports
and at our nuclear plants
more dependent on foreign oil
out of the international criminal court
off the anti ballistic missle treaty
military readiness and standards down

with two unfinished wars
a nuclear North Korea
disengaged from the Palestinian problem
destabilizing eastern european diplomacy with
anti missile plans
and unable to keep Russia out of Georgia

2000 miles of Appalachian streams
destroyed by rubble from mountaintop mining
at his last G-8 summit,
he actually bid farewell to other world leaders
saying quote—goodbye from the world's greatest polluter

consistently undermining historic American reverence
for the institutions that empower us
education, now "academic elites"
and the law, "activist judges"
capping jury awards

and Bin Laden?
living today unmolested in a Pakistani safe haven
created by a truce endorsed and defended by George W. Bush

and among all the gifts he gave to Bin Laden
the most awful, the most damaging not just to America
but to the American ideal
was to further Bin Laden's goal
by making us act out of fear rather than fortitude

leaving us with precious little to cling to tonight
save the one thing that might yet suffice:

hope.

Rush The Big Fat Moron (with chords!)

2009-01-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

C Em F C
Rush the big fat moron lived on ABC And

F
boll-ocked up the

C Am D7
Airways there with his lame

G7
ass sophistries!

C Em
Lit-tle Joe the Plumber

F C
loved that asshole Rush And bought his

F
lies though

C Am D7 G7 C
Super sized and pulled out of his

G7
tush. Oh!

durrati's diary :: ::

C Em F C
Rush the big fat moron lived on ABC And

F
boll-ocked up the

C Am D7
Airways there with his lame-ass

G7
sophistries!

C Em F C
Rush the big fat moron lived on ABC And

F
boll-ocked up the

C Am D7
Airways there with his lame-ass

G7
sophistries!

(O.K., you got the swing of it now....just the lyrics now. Everybody Sing!!)

To-get-her they would trav-el on a cloud with an Oxy sail

Joe he kept a look-out perched on Rush’s hu-mong-ous tail,

No-ble Reps and Senators would bow when-e'er they came,

Dumb rednecks would low'r their beers when Rush roared out his name. Oh!

Refrain:

Rush the magic moron lived on ABC And boll-ocked up the

Airways there with his lame-ass sophistries!

Rush the big fat moron lived on ABC And boll-ocked up the

Airways there with his lame-ass sophistries!

A moron lives forever but not so little Joes,

Lay off slips and market dips finally got him on his toes.

One grey day it happened, Joe the plumber tuned in no more

And Rush that porcine moron, he ceased his fearless roar.

His ass still fat in sorrow, green OCs dulled his pain,

Rush no longer plied his bullshit on ABC’s lane.

Without his life-long friend, Rush could not be brave,

So Rush that big fat moron finally slipped into his grave. doh!

(come on people, I wanna hear you sing! How you gonna end a culture war if you can’t sing no louder than that?)

Oh, Rush the big fat moron lived on ABC And boll-ocked up the

Airways there with his lame sophistries!

Rush the big fat moron lived on ABC And boll-ocked up the

Airways there with his lame-ass sophistries!

Oh,Rush the big fat moron lived on ABC And boll-ocked up the

Airways there with his lame sophistries!

Rush the big fat moron lived on ABC And boll-ocked up the

Airways there with his lame-ass sophistries!

Cheney Admits To War Crimes Because His Pardon Is Already In His Christmas Stocking. Please Speak Out For Lumps Of Coal.

2008-12-30T12:20:00.000-08:00

Speak Out Against The Planned Bush Blanket Pardons BEFORE They Can
Happen

Pay no attention to the handful of Christmas pardons granted by Bush.
This is mere political window dressing to distract from the bumper
crop of blanket absolutions, including one for himself, scheduled to
be released just before midnight on Jan 19th. Cheney would not so
arrogantly be bragging on TV about how he authorized torture if it
were not so.

But there is a resolution in Congress, H.Res. 1531, preemptively
condemning any such move if we can just get enough members of
Congress to sponsor it (already 10 so far). Many of you have
submitted a action page on this already. Please do it again,
especially if your representative did not hear you the first time.

Action Page To Stop The Bush Pardons:
http://www.usalone.com/hres1531.php

Each action page you submit is another lump of coal in Cheney's
stocking. Some have speculated on the possibility of post
inauguration impeachment, especially considering the fact that many
insiders are waiting until then to spill the beans. Maybe they don't
want to get bumped off in asuspicious plane crash like Mike Connell.
But a self pardon at the very last minute would certainly be grounds
for some kind of action, perhaps even impeachment, if and only if
Congress would react and take action immediately.

So we will still continue to distribute the impeachment message items
until the very last minute as well. If you did not get one of the
original navy blue "IMPEACH CHENEY?" caps, which was the original
"question" hat, we still have some of those which you can get from
the return page of the action page above. And of course we have the
orange "IMPEACH BOTH!!!" caps (the "answer" hat). If you wear one and
a friend wears the other that is especially effective. Or you can
request a copy of the Impeachment Play DVD, either from that same
return page, or here is the link directly for all three.

Impeachment Caps and DVDs:
http://www.usalone.com/impeach_caps_dvds.php

In any case we need to get ready to raise a renewed hue and cry when
the expected happens on January 19th. How hard could it be to get
members of Congress to simply raise their hand and declare that a
presidential self pardon, let alone pardon of his criminal
co-conspirators, is maybe not such a good idea? If we are to draw the
line anywhere, this is where is must be drawn.

And let us look forward to the day when we will have real
representatives in Washington, for a change, because we never stopped
speaking out.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

48 books, 48 hours

2008-12-30T12:18:00.000-08:00

On January 20, George Bush will be gone.

But not forgotten.

How can we forget?

His crimes.

And the failure of the Democrats in Congress to bring him to justice.

We will never forget.

To prepare for the struggle to bring Bush, Cheney and their regime to justice post-January 20, we have a special offer for you -- our supporters.

We have just come across 130 boxes of the I Hate George Bush Reader: Why Dubya is Wrong About Absolutely Everything, edited by Clint Willis.

There are 48 copies of the book in each box, featuring chapters on Bush the Liar, Bush the Bully, Bush the Corrupt.

Send young people to war on false pretenses? No problem!

Coddle and subsidize the rich and steal from the poor? You bet!

Steal our civil liberties? Of course!

Bush has done it all. And this 380 page paperback documents it all. What better gift for friend and foe alike?

For a donation of $100 or more, we will ship to you a box of 48 of this classic book.

But here's the thing -- we have only 130 boxes left. We'll ship them now to the first 130 to donate $100 or more. (We'll stop taking orders at 130 -- because that's all we have.)

Then in January, you will have 48 chances to say to friends and foe alike

"We must bring the Bush/Cheney gang to justice -- here's why" -- and hand them a copy of the book.

Or hold your own special -- Bring Bush/Cheney to Justice Party on or before January 20 -- invite everyone, and give the book out at the door as a party favor.

Or give them to the young students in your life -- as a reminder of the dangers of re-making society in a fascist direction.

Order online, or give us a call 866 973 4463 and we'll take your order.

In any event, get your box of 48 copies of the book now.

We have the books. But not for long. Arm yourself for the fight to bring Bush and Cheney to justice.

Act now -- before it's too late.

Onward,

The World Can' t Wait!

P.S. this offer ends 11:59pm Wednesday December 31.

World Can't Wait - info@worldcantwait.org - 866.973.4463 - 305 W. Broadway #185, NY, NY 10013

Two Dangerous Bush-Cheney Myths

2008-12-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

by: Robert Parry, Consortium News

President Bush speaks to troops in Baghdad. (Photo: Reuters)

As George W. Bush and Dick Cheney make their case for some positive legacy from the past eight years, two arguments are playing key roles: the notion that torturing terror suspects saved American lives and the belief that Bush's Iraq troop "surge" transformed a disaster into something close to "victory."

Not only will these twin arguments be important in defining the public's future impression of where Bush should rank on the presidential list, but they could constrain how far President Barack Obama can go in reversing these policies. In other words, the perception of the past can affect the future.

Though most current thinking holds that George W. Bush might want to trademark the slogan "Worst President Ever," America's powerful right-wing media (and its many allies in the mainstream press) will surely seek to rehabilitate Bush's reputation as much as possible.

Even elevating Bush to the status of a presidential mediocrity might open the door for a revival of the Bush Dynasty with brother Jeb already eyeing one of Florida's U.S. Senate seats and possibly harboring grander ambitions.

And even if another Bush in the White House is not realistic, a kinder-gentler judgment on George W. Bush at least could help the Republican Party rebound in 2010 and 2012. So evaluating the Bush-Cheney torture policies and how successful the "surge" are not just academic exercises.

Two recent articles by people with first-hand knowledge also shed important new light on these issues: one by a lead U.S. interrogator in Iraq and the other by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The interrogator - using the pseudonym "Matthew Alexander" for an article in the Washington Post's Outlook section on Nov. 30 - wrote that the practice of humiliating and abusing prisoners had proved counterproductive, not only violating U.S. principles and failing to extract reliable intelligence but fueling the Iraqi insurgency and getting large numbers of U.S. soldiers killed.

Indeed, "Alexander," a U.S. Air Force special operations officer, argued that it was his team's abandonment of those harsh tactics that contributed to the tracking down and killing of the murderous al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006, an important turning point in reducing levels of violence in Iraq.

"Alexander" said he arrived in Iraq in March 2006, amid the bloody civil war that Sunni extremist Zarqawi had helped provoke a month earlier with the bombing of the golden-domed Askariya mosque in Samarra, a shrine revered by Iraq's majority Shiites.

"Amid the chaos, four other Air Force criminal investigators and I joined an elite team of interrogators attempting to locate Zarqawi," he wrote. "What I soon discovered about our methods astonished me. The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model. ... These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse.

"I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology -- one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information."

Breakthroughs

By getting to know the captives and negotiating with them, his team achieved breakthroughs that enabled the U.S. military to close in on Zarqawi while also gaining a deeper understanding of what drove the Iraqi insurgency, "Alexander" wrote.

"Over the course of this renaissance in interrogation tactics, our attitudes changed. We no longer saw our prisoners as the stereotypical al-Qaeda evildoers we had been repeatedly briefed to expect; we saw them as Sunni Iraqis, often family men protecting themselves from Shiite militias and trying to ensure that their fellow Sunnis would still have some access to wealth and power in the new Iraq.

"Most surprisingly, they turned out to despise al-Qaeda in Iraq as much as they despised us, but Zarqawi and his thugs were willing to provide them with arms and money," the interrogator wrote, noting that this understanding played a key role in the U.S. military turning many Sunnis against the hyper-violent extremism of Zarqawi's organization.

"Alexander" added that the new interrogation methods "convinced one of Zarqawi's associates to give up the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader's location. On June 8, 2006, U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house where Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders."

Despite the success in killing Zarqawi, "Alexander" said the old, harsh interrogation methods continued. "I came home from Iraq feeling as if my mission was far from accomplished," he wrote. "Soon after my return, the public learned that another part of our government, the CIA, had repeatedly used waterboarding to try to get information out of detainees."

"Alexander" found that the engrained support for using "rough stuff" against hardened jihadists was difficult to overcome despite the successes from more subtle approaches.

"We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques," he wrote. "A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, 'I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate.'"

From hundreds of these interrogations, "Alexander" said he learned that the images from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib were actually getting American soldiers killed by drawing angry young Arabs into the Iraq War.

"Torture and abuse cost American lives," the interrogator wrote. "I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq.

"It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001.

"How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans."

Nevertheless, in a series of candid "exit interviews," Vice President Cheney - and to a lesser degree President Bush - have defended their actions that included sanctioning brutal methods of interrogation, such as the simulated drowning of "waterboarding." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Cheney Defends Waterboarding Order."]

The "Surge"

To this day, the belief that subjecting "bad guys" to physical and psychological abuse makes them crack -- and thus saves American lives -- remains a central myth that the departing Bush administration won't abandon. A parallel myth is the notion of the "successful surge."

It holds that Bush's brave decision to go against the prevailing political winds in early 2007 and escalate U.S. military involvement in Iraq - with a 30,000-troop "surge" - saved the day. News stories and opinion articles across the U.S. news media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have transformed this argument into "conventional wisdom."

However, as we have pointed out in other stories, the reality is far more complex, with several other key reasons contributing to the drop in Iraqi violence, many predating or unrelated to the "surge," including:

The decision by Sunni tribes to turn against al-Qaeda and accept U.S. financial support, the so-called "Anbar Awakening" that began in 2006. Zarqawi's extremism contributed to this shift, which in turn was a factor in his isolation and death in June 2006.
Vicious ethnic cleansing had separated Sunnis and Shiites to such a degree that there were fewer targets to kill. Several million Iraqis fled as refugees either into neighboring countries or within their own.
Concrete walls built between Sunni and Shiite areas made "death-squad" raids more difficult but also "cantonized" much of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, making everyday life for Iraqis even more exhausting as they sought food or traveled to work.
An expanded U.S. policy of rounding up so-called "military age males" locked up tens of thousands in prison.
Awesome U.S. firepower, concentrated on Iraqi insurgents and civilian bystanders for more than five years, had slaughtered countless thousands of Iraqis and intimidated many others to look simply to their own survival.
With the total Iraqi death toll estimated in the hundreds of thousands and many more Iraqis horribly maimed, the society was deeply traumatized. As tyrants have learned throughout history, at some point violent repression does work.

However, in Washington political circles, it was all about the "successful surge."

There also was little concern about the 1,000 additional U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since President Bush started the "surge" in 2007. The Americans killed during the "surge" represent roughly one-quarter of the total war dead whose numbers have now passed the 4,200 mark.

Rumsfeld's Doubts

Surprisingly to some Iraq War critics, one of the chief obstacles to Bush's "surge" was the widely despised Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who - in fall 2006 - pushed for a strategy that would have slashed the U.S. military presence in Iraq dramatically by mid-2007.

On Nov. 6, 2006, Rumsfeld sent a memo to the White House, in which he listed his preferred - or "above the line" - options as "an accelerated drawdown of U.S. bases ... to five by July 2007" and withdrawal of U.S. forces "from vulnerable positions - cities, patrolling, etc. ... so the Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country."

Two days later, Rumsfeld was forced to submit his resignation and Bush announced Robert Gates as the new Defense Secretary. Not aware of Rumsfeld's memo, Washington pundits and many leading Democrats misinterpreted the personnel shift as a reaction to the Democratic congressional election victory on Nov. 7, 2006.

The consensus view was that the "realist" Gates would oversee a rapid U.S. military drawdown in Iraq. However, the opposite occurred. Gates became Bush's front man for the "surge." [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Robert Gates: As Bad as Rumsfeld?"]

The subsequent conventional wisdom about the "successful surge" catapulted Gates from the ranks of the departing Bush administration into those of the arriving Obama administration, where he will remain Defense Secretary.

On Nov. 23, 2008, less than three weeks after Obama's Nov. 4 election victory as it was becoming clear that Obama would retain Gates, Rumsfeld shed more light on his own Iraq War strategy in an op-ed for the New York Times.

While bowing to the prevailing conventional wisdom about the "successful surge," Rumsfeld defended his pre-surge thinking, explaining that a number of factors had set up the "tipping point" that enabled the "surge" to be successful.

Though using more positive language about those preconditions (than we did), Rumsfeld made essentially the same points, adding that previous increases in U.S. troop levels - to numbers comparable to the "surge" levels - had achieved minimal effect in containing the violence.

"As one who is occasionally - and incorrectly - portrayed as an opponent of the surge in Iraq, I believe that while the surge has been effective in Iraq, we must also recognize the conditions that made it successful," Rumsfeld wrote.

"By early 2007, several years of struggle had created the new conditions for a tipping point:

Al Qaeda in Iraq's campaign of terrorism and intimidation had turned its Sunni base of support against it. The result was the so-called Anbar Awakening in the late summer of 2006, followed by similar awakening movements across Iraq.
From 2003 through 2006, United States military forces, under the leadership of Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey, inflicted huge losses on the Baathist and Qaeda leadership. Many thousands of insurgents, including the Qaeda chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, were captured or killed and proved difficult to replace.
The Iraqi Security Forces had achieved cohesion, improved operational effectiveness and critical mass. By December 2006, some 320,000 Iraqis had been trained, equipped and deployed, producing the forces necessary to help hold difficult neighborhoods against the enemy. By 2007, the surge, for most Iraqis, could have an Iraqi face.
And the political scene in Iraq had shifted. Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric, declared a cease-fire in February 2007. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, seated in May 2006, moved against militias and Iranian-backed militias and has imperfectly, but notably, rejected narrow sectarian policies.

"The best indication that timing is everything may be that there had been earlier surges without the same effect as the 2007 surge. In 2005, troop levels in Iraq were increased to numbers nearly equal to the 2007 surge - twice. But the effects were not as durable because large segments of the Sunni population were still providing sanctuary to insurgents, and Iraq's security forces were not sufficiently capable or large enough."

In other words, even Rumsfeld would agree that the simplistic conventional wisdom of Washington - that Bush's "surge" turned everything around and that everyone, including Barack Obama, must accept that "fact" - doesn't square with the more complex reality.

Still, as Americans should have learned over the past three decades of image-managing - from Ronald Reagan to Karl Rove - perceptions can be a powerful thing. Perception may not be the same as reality but it can become a very dangerous substitute both in defining the present and charting the future.

--------

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

Is the Economic Recession Getting You Down?

2008-10-12T19:03:00.001-07:00

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Never Before Revealed Information!

When you’re unprepared for the impact of recession on your life and your business, the consequences can take you completely by surprise.

The economic recession brought on by over eager lenders, under-prepared borrowers, and overzealous government and an economy that cares more about its bottom line than its citizens has been pummeling Americans from coast to coast, and it doesn’t show any signs of going away any time soon.

Are you sick and tired of counting your pennies? Looking for a way to be free of the constant fear that one day you’re going to walk into your office and find a pink slip sitting there waiting for you? Would you like, just once to be the once sitting back and making a profit instead of the one worrying about whether this will be the week your business is going to have to close its doors?

Let Me Show You How...

Did you know that economic recessions aren’t anything new? The lifecycle of the business world very closely resembles the lifecycle of the average insect-it circles around, and around, and around, and…well, you get the picture. There are many stages inside that circle that keep business flowing smoothly and the wheels of progress turning the way they’re meant to.

An economic recession is only one of these stages.

Economic recessions are a vital part of the well being and health of our economy, and a study into our history will show that they actually happen on a fairly regular basis-and they usually don’t leave much damage behind. Why, then, do we panic so badly at the thought that this time might be our turn to weather an economic recession?

Because we don’t know what to do about it!

Business magnates understand that economic recession, a time when consumer spending is going to decrease for one reason or another and have a negative impact on the life and health of their company, is a necessary stage of life. From the moment they step into their corner office they’re carefully grooming and preparing the company for the moment when recession is going to rear its unattractive head and take a bite out of their profits.

Those of us who haven’t finished our MBA usually aren’t that well informed.

Without being aware of the necessity and the inevitability of an economic recession, most of us don’t realize that sooner or later recession is going to happen, and it’s going to impact all of our lives. We’ve been lulled into complacency by the constant boom and growth of the American economy, and we’re so focused on finding instant gratification for our desires that we don’t see when recession starts to creep up until it is far too late.

Strings of layoffs
Dramatic dips in the profits of your company
An increase in outsourced labor
The disappearance of expendable cash
A crashing housing market
Rapidly falling stock prices
Decreasing values of 401Ks and other retirement accounts
Companies going bankrupt

Everyone knows about the negative impacts of an Economic Recession. But what about the positive ones?

When you’ve walked into an unemployment office and seen hundreds of people filling out paperwork in the hope that somehow, someway, someone in that office will be able to help them find a job, it can be hard to believe that there are actually benefits to an economic recession. They are there, however, and if you’re a savvy business person you’ll be able to figure out how to take advantage of them. How do you think so many companies manage to stay in business when recessions happen at least once a decade?

Major corporations around the globe has learned how to weather an economic recession and keep making a profit, and now you can do it too! Regardless of whether you’re an entry level janitor or the CEO of a major corporation, the recession is going to have an impact on your life personally. The question is, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to let the recession bowl you over and leave you struggling for a way to keep your job and pay your bills? Or are you going to look at it as an opportunity to expand your horizons, stretch your wings and show the world what you can really do?

That was a choice I had to make for myself not too long ago

Two years ago I was sitting pretty. I had a good government job working as a contractor for the military, a good retirement plan, a salary that more than met our needs and an insurance program that kept my kids in antibiotics and vaccines.

All in all, life was looking pretty good. Then the recession hit.

I don’t know if any of you out there were unfortunate enough to be a part of this, but over the last two years military contractors have been steadily laying off hundreds of employees in an attempt to trim the fat from their bottom line and help them stay afloat as government contracts began to be canceled left, right and sideways. Because I had just accepted a new position within the company I was considered to be the new kid on the block, even though I had been working for them for years, and my job was among the first to go.

I was devastated.

Suddenly there I was, with a family to support and no income other than what I had coming in from our investments. I’m not ashamed to say I panicked at first. I couldn’t see how, at my age, I could possibly pick up and start all over again in another job. I’d invested too much time and effort to get where I had been, and the thought of having to climb that ladder all over again was enough to make me want to lock my door and hide for a year or two.

My general fondness for eating on a semi-regular basis got me out the door soon enough, however, and it wasn’t long before I was roaming the streets looking for another job. I was fortunate. I had remained in touch with many of my old college buddies, and one of them happened to work for a firm that had just lost one of its key employees and was looking for someone qualified who would be able to fill his place-quickly.

My friend’s recommendation and my own experience had me inside a new job within a month, but over the course of that month I saw hundreds of other contractors I had worked with who weren’t as lucky. They were out of work for months, many of them taking jobs that were far below their skills, their education and their experience just to have a paycheck.

And then there were a few of them that decided to start their own companies and offer their services to the private sector. A few of them started new careers in real estate. When I first heard what they were planning I thought they were out of their minds, but it wasn’t long before they started turning a profit-a big one.

I was astonished. If the U.S. government was losing money hand over fist and having to shut down its operations, how on earth were these little start-up companies managing to not only survive, but to thrive?

They were able to do it because they figured out how to take advantage of the recession!

I would never have believed that there would have been anything about an economic recession that would allow a company or a private entrepreneur to thrive, but as I talked with my old friends I realized that there was a side of the recession that we never saw-and that side could make the difference between surviving and thriving in the middle of an economic recession.

This is the ultimate guide to showing you how to thrive when everything else seems to be falling apart!

It’s really not fair that only a small percentage of the population has the knowledge they need to hang on to their jobs, increase their net worth and help their company thrive-especially when all they really need to do is change their mindset!! That’s why I decided to write Recession Suvival - How To Proft From An Economic Recession. I figured it was high time the rest of the world had the chance to learn what the major players already knew-the secrets for surviving an economic recession without going into debt!

But don’t take my word for it…

I don’t expect you to take my word for it. Hey, a recession can be scary stuff! That’s why I’m offering Recession Suvival - How To Proft From An Economic Recession complete with a 90 day money back guarantee. Buy the book. Read it. Put the strategies I’m going to show you into play in your own life!

Give investing a try
Grow your stock portfolio exponentially
Make yourself so indispensable your boss will never fire you!
Give your company the momentum it needs to get through the recession and go into the future with a bang

The secrets I’m going to show you in this book are the same business tricks and strategies that major corporations like Macy’s and J.C. Penney have been using to survive economic recessions for decades. Don’t you wonder sometimes why these companies have been in business for years? Wouldn’t you love to know what secrets are keeping their managers in the driver’s seats when hundreds of other companies are closing their doors? Let me show you!

There’s nothing in this book that requires you to throw thousands of dollars into some strange investment opportunity that’s “guaranteed to secure your future”.

Just plain, simple, easy to use tricks and strategies to help you ride out the recession and come out on top on the other side.

What are you waiting for? ORDER NOW!!!

The History of the American Economic Recession

2008-10-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

This year, there have been murmurs that the United States is entering, again, into an economic recession. Although the National Bureau of Economic Research still has not release any formal announcement regarding this, American people are starting to experience an economic slowdown and a downturn in their financial and personal life.

This would not be the first time that the United States would experience an economic recession. According to economists, since 1854, the United States has encountered 32 cycles of expansions and contractions (boom and bust). There would be and average of 17 months of contraction an 38 months of expansion. However, since 1980 there have been only eight periods of negative economic growth over one quarter or more.

There were three period considered to recessions:

January- July 1980 and July 1981- November 1982: two years in total
July 1990- March 1991: eight months
November 2001- November 2002: twelve months

The longest record for an American economic boom was 37 quarters during 1991 until 2000.

The first economic recession happened in 1819. It greatly affected the new nation. After the War of 1812, the American economy was experiencing monetary strains. In 1814, during the term of President Madison, he allowed a replacement of a national bank. This enabled the post-war economy to boom. Although in 1817, there were some financial irregularities and irresponsibility. Americans started buying extravagant amounts of western lands- more than they can afford. The government started selling the land on credit.

On 1819, the government started to demand payment from the loans. During this time, the economy is starting to slow down. The market growth could no longer be sustained, the demands of American products are starting to wane. This led to a wave of bankruptcies and foreclosures. Land owners found themselves unable to pay their government debts and debts in the banks, leading to repossessing of lands.

After the 1817 recession, another recession in 1837 followed. With this recession, in just two months time, the economic decline accumulated to nearly $100,000,000 in value. There were reportedly 343 banks that closed (out of the 850 banks). While 62 banks reported partial failure.

There were recessions that happened in 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1907. The 1907 economic recession was a financial crisis. Nearly 50 percent of the stock market fell from its peak in 1906. It's primary cause was a retraction of loans by some banks that began in New York City and soon spread into the whole country. The 1907 recession was the fourth recession in 34 years.

The post-World War I recession hit not only the United States but much of the countries globally. Pre-war economy was showing fast economic growth. As a matter of fact, the decade before the war, the world economy was growing record high. After the war, the global economy stated to decline. The sharpest or worst decline was during 1921. the recession was a result of the end of wartime production along with the return of the troops without any employment. Global production was also affected by the war, especially those countries whose industries were shattered by the war.

What followed was known as the Great Depression that occurred from 1929 until 1939. It is the most dramatic, worldwide economic landslide. It affected not only industrialized countries b out also nations who rely in exporting their raw materials. It was the largest and most important economic depression in the world.

Five recessions in the United States followed after the Great Depression. It was the recession during 1953, 1957, early in the 1980s, early during 1990s and early 2000.

The early 2000 economic recession was not felt only in the United States, but was experienced in most Western Countries. The European Union was mostly hit during 2000 and 2001. While the United states was affected mostly during 2002 and 2003.

RFK Jr. "Votes are being stolen, now, by hundreds of thousands"

2008-09-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

Air America Interview. Robert Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio

Votes are being stolen, now, by hundreds of thousands--and the Democrats aren't doing anything about it.

RFK, Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: There are about 30 scams the Republicans are deliberately using, particularly in the swing states to get Democratic voters off the rolls. These scams originate in the so-called Help America Vote Act, which was passed after the Florida debacle in the year 2000. It was originally suggested by Democrats and Republicans, but it was passed by a Republican Congress with a Republican senate and a Republican president. And instead of reforming what happened in Florida it basically institutionalized all the problems that happened in Florida. And institutionalized a series of impediments that make it very difficult for Democrats to register, for Democrats to vote and then for Democrats to have their votes counted.

One of these requirements under HAVA is called 'the perfect match,' and what that does is little known but it is devastating. A quarter of the voters in Colorado have just been removed from the rolls because of this--[and] just this one scam. And what it does is, they use a computer system to compare your registration application to all [your] other government records in the state. So they'll look at your Social Security records, your Motor Vehicle records, and any time you've had any interaction with the government, and if there is any information on your voter registration that is different than the information on another government record that they find, they remove you from the voting rolls.

For example, if I registered as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and yet my motor vehicle license said Robert Frances Kennedy Jr., I'd be removed from the rolls. If your initial is different, if you leave an initial out, if you leave a "Jr." out, if you leave a hyphen out in your name. And what they've done is a study in New York that said 80% of the errors are errors by state clerks taking down this information. And particularly [in] immigrant communities, [where] people tend to vote Democratic, people have namesŠspell Muhammad with an "o" instead of a "u"

Papantonio: Are the Democrats suing to stop this?

RFK, Jr.: No, the Democrats are doing nothing to stop it. In New Jersey, which is a swing state, 300,000 voters in New Jersey were just sent letters saying that they are now ineligible to vote. New Jersey is nice enough to actually notify them--most states will not even notify them. And New Jersey intends to send out 870,000 letters so that is three quarters of a million people off the voting rolls in a state that could decide this vote by 50,000 votes. And these are Democrats that are being pushed off the rolls.

Let me tell you about one of other scams people should know about. If you're a newly registered voter--and of course the Democrats have done these gigantic registration drives--12 million people on registration--if you're a new voter, you MUST include your license or some other state I.D. when you come to vote. What that means is that if you're a college kid--and college kids now, they're sending in absentee ballots, they're not going to the voting place, they do everything online or they do everything remotely. They don't dream of going to the precinct house voting on election day and waiting in a long line. So if they send in the absentee ballot, and they don't include a color copy of their [driver's] license, their vote is going to be thrown into a trash can. And none of these people know this, because you had to have to read the law in order to know it. There is no notification [of this requirement] when you fill out your registration form, so all of those 12 million people that the Democrats have registered--those ballots are going to be just thrown out.

Papantonio: And if Democrats won't talk about this, how the hell's anybody gonna know about it? I'm involved with this kind of thing every day--I didn't know that until you just told me. The media is not talking about it. How in the hell is somebody gonna find this out? It's just incredible.

RFK, Jr.: Hopefully--Obama is getting $66 million a month--hopefully somebody in the Democratic organization is going to pay some attention to this before Election Day.

Florida closes Foley investigation without charges

2008-09-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

From Susan Candiotti
CNN

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The Florida Department of Law Enforcement closed a sex-related criminal probe of former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley on Friday without filing charges, authorities said.

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, pictured in 2004, resigned in September 2006.

"There is insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges," said Gerald Bailey, commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Authorities were investigating whether the Florida Republican, who resigned in September 2006, might have used congressional computers to engage or solicit minors in any illegal activities.

Officials said they were hindered by refusal from Foley and the House of Representatives to allow inspection of the computers.

"FDLE conducted as thorough and comprehensive investigation as possible considering Congress and Mr. Foley denied us access to critical data," Bailey said in a written statement. "Should additional information arise which is pertinent to this case, we will ensure it is appropriately investigated."

Foley is "relieved" that no probable cause was found to charge him with a crime, his lawyer, David Roth, told reporters Friday evening. But in a statement Roth read on behalf of the former congressman, Foley added, "I however recognize that while my behavior was not illegal, it does not by any means make it proper or approriate. To the contrary, I am deeply ashamed of my conduct, which was wrong and without question inappropriate."

Foley said he takes full responsibility for his actions and apologized, particularly to the recipients of the e-mails or instant messages.

"I continue to pray for forgiveness from those I have disappointed" and emotionally harmed, Foley said in the statement.

Foley entered treatment for alcoholism on October 1, 2006, he said in his statement, and has been clean and sober since the day he resigned from Congress.

Roth has denied that his client engaged in sexual activity with minors.

"He is absolutely, positively not a pedophile," attorney David Roth said previously. "He is apologetic for the communications he made while under the influence of alcohol, which he acknowledges are totally inappropriate."

Those communications included scores of e-mails and instant messages that were given to investigators by former House pages. The exchanges -- in which Foley used the screen name MAF 54 -- were published in a House ethics committee report in December 2006.

Roth told reporters Friday that Foley has no intention of re-entering politics and is focusing on his recovery.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement put the price tag for the nearly two-year investigation at about $37,800.

Foley entered a treatment facility for alcoholism shortly after resigning, saying he is gay and was molested by a priest when he was between the ages of 13 and 15.

A Catholic priest living in Italy admitted in a TV interview that he molested Foley when he was a teenager.

"Once maybe, I touched him or so, but I didn't -- it wasn't -- because it's not something you call, I mean rape or penetration or anything like that, you know. We were just fondling," said the priest, Anthony Mercieca.

The ethics committee's probe concluded that House GOP leaders were negligent in not protecting male teenage pages from possible improper advances by Foley. But the panel said there were no violations of the House Code of Official Conduct and decided no one would be reprimanded.

A Justice Department report issued a month later said the FBI should have notified the House or other officials when members first learned of the inappropriate e-mails. The FBI acted within its "range of discretion" when it initially decided not to open a criminal investigation in the case, the Justice Department said. But the internal watchdog's investigation concluded that simply filing away the complaint from a public interest group was an inadequate response.

The FDLE's investigative summary notes that the U.S. House's clerk of courts took possession of two computer hard drives from Foley's two district offices in Florida and the computer from his Washington office, along with backup material.

The department said it did not seek a search warrant for the drives because it failed to turn up probable cause of a crime with a Florida connection.

The department report said that Foley's attorneys voluntarily worked with the Justice Department to review computer data, but the FDLE failed to work out a similar review with Foley's attorneys.

The department said it was given no indication from the FBI or the Justice Department that there was any non-congressional data in the material that would violate Florida law.

Bush Bankrupts America, But You Can Still Get A Free DVD Of The Impeachment Play, And There Is Still Time To Impeach

2008-09-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

Many were skeptical that the criminal creeps in the White House could
actually bankrupt the entire United States of America in a mere 8
years, and yet here we are, staring into the abyss of that "Mission
Accomplished" right now. And deliberately lying the American people
into a counterproductive and illegal two trillion dollar war was just
another day's treason for those occupants.

Now, even WE do not expect action on impeachment this particular
week. Congress is too preoccupied scrambling to try to salvage the
disaster that has become our economy because of 8 years of corrupt
Republicans hell bent on deregulation, and EQUALLY corrupt Democrats
too cowardly to stop them, even when they had the actual power to do
so. And unfortunately, the plan they are likely to present to us
before the end of the weekend as a fait accompli looks like it will
be the biggest theft from the American taxpayer in history.

But at the same time, there is no assurance they will not start a
full blown World War 3 on top of everything else, even before the
next election, to try to swing that election to the new Armageddon
Twins in the wings. Believe it, they are perfectly capable of
something that evil, and will do it without a second thought for
partisan political advantage. And that is why we must keep the heat
on for impeachment, and do everything we can to educate our friends
and neighbors about its constitutional imperative.

And that is why we have made the DVD of the new Impeachment Play
available for you and no donation is required.

Impeachment Play DVD and Video: http://www.impeachplay.com

So if you have not requested yours yet, please do so from the page
above. Although there is an optional donation section on the page,
that is not a requirement. Just remember, if you CAN make a donation
of amount, that is what is making it possible for us to distribute so
many thousands of free DVDs to those who cannot make a contribution
right now, to pay our valiant actors through the union (which we are
thrilled to be able to support) for their magnificent and deserving
work, for the bandwidth on the free viewing site above where you can
watch the whole production right now, and everything else.

And when you get it, throw parties for your friends to show it, put
on screenings in your community at libraries and community centers as
so many are already doing. And encourage everyone you know to get
their own copies, just as you got yours, and do the same thing.

There is a very simple solution to the mortgage-based financial
crisis. Ease the terms on the hardworking homeowners who are
struggling to make their payments, and thereby help them directly. We
remember when we fought against the hideously cruel new bankruptcy
bill a couple year ago, rammed through without a serious attempt at a
filibuster. If only we had been able to get more people to speak out
then.

But instead, Congress will probably fall over itself, in a sickly
show of staged bipartisanship, to hand hundreds of billions dollars
to the very reckless shysters who drove us off this cliff in the
first place. For the partially inflated punching bags which pass for
most members of Congress, in case of fire, pour on more gasoline.

Just remember, as long as there are 15 minutes left, even for a
president and vice president supposed to leave office anyway, there
is PLENTY of time left to impeach, for that is how long a vote in the
House takes, and any talk to the contrary is just silly, defeatist
babble. And all we have to do to make it happen is get MORE people to
speak out and DEMAND it. It may be the only thing that can deter
future presidents from doing the same and worse.

In case anybody is not paying attention, an impeachment movement
against the president of Pakistan just developed so fast, from the
talk of initially doing it until the "done deal", it was only a
matter of a couple days. So while some here are WASTING time talking
about "not enough time", Pakistan just went ahead about doing it, and
forced the instant resignation of Musharraf

Is Pakistan a better democracy that the good ole United States of
America? Does Pakistan have a better and more effective Constitution?
There is enough time to impeach ten presidents and vice presidents if
only we rally the people to speak out. And anybody who tries to tell
you different is just a right wing tool whether they know it or not.

But to actually make life imitate art, we need millions of people to
watch the impeachment play video, to really bring home the issues
involved, and to inspire them to raise their voices too. Request your
own copy of the DVD at the site below.

Impeachment Play DVD and Video: http://www.impeachplay.com

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

Alaska paper: Palin has "abdicated" her Gov. duties

2008-09-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Perhaps nowhere is the takeover of Sarah Palin by the McCain campaign playing out worse than in her home state of Alaska. Alaskans have not been happy at all to see the McCain camp swoop in and take control of the governor's mansion, and they are none too pleased to see Sarah and Todd Palin's stonewalling of the Troopergate investigation. And today the editors of the Anchorage Daily News have really called out Palin, under an editorial entitled "Abdication by Palin." It's pretty strong stuff.
http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/531725.html

One of the ONLY qualities about Sarah Palin that seemed to hold out any hope of appealing to moderates and independents was her alleged "reformer" image. John McCain heavily touted this quality when he first introduced Palin to the nation as his running mate, and she's tried to cultivate this image ever since. Problem is, all the examples she's used to try to prove she was a fellow "maverick" turned out to be lies: from her now infamous and laughable "Thanks But No Thanks" lie about the Bridge to Nowhere to her lies about not accepting federal earmarks. Her stonewalling of Troopergate may be the final nail in the Palin "reformer" myth, especially in Alaska:

Gov. Sarah Palin has surrendered important gubernatorial duties to the Republican presidential campaign. McCain staff are handling public and press questions about actions she has taken as governor. The governor who said, "Hold me accountable," is hiding behind the hired guns of the McCain campaign to avoid accountability.

Is it too much to ask that Alaska's governor speak for herself, directly to Alaskans, about her actions as Alaska's governor?

The use of words like "abdication" and "surrender" are startling indeed, and ones I'm sure the ADN editors chose quite carefully to lay some serious charges at Palin's feet. The editorial goes on to give several examples of how the McCain campaign has taken over Palin's governorship duties, from McCain campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan announcing that Todd Palin will not comply with a Troopergate investigation subpoena to McCain campaign "sidekick" Meg Stapleton defending Palin's firing of Walt Monegan (and trashing Monegan in the process).

ABC News reported that Gov. Palin's official press secretary, Bill McAllister, paid by the state of Alaska, didn't even know the McCain staffers were meeting the press to defend his boss.

Is the McCain campaign telling Alaskans that Alaska's governor can't handle her own defense in front of her own Alaska constituents?

Way back when, before John McCain chose Palin as his vice presidential running mate, Palin promised to cooperate with the investigation.

Now she won't utter a peep about it to Alaskans. Nor will her husband, Todd, who definitely needs to explain his role in Troopergate.

Instead, Alaskans have to sit back and listen to John McCain's campaign operatives handling inquiries about what Alaska's governor did while governing Alaska. Residents of any state would be offended to see their governor cede such a fundamental, day-to-day governmental responsibility to a partisan politician from another state. It's especially offensive to Alaskans.

I think the McCain campaign has mishandled Troopergate about as badly as it could have handled it. First off, knowing about Troopergate, McCain never should have chosen Palin to begin with. But now that he has, McCain's attempts to squash the investigation have only made things worse. In this case, the cover-up MAY be worse than the crime. Even if the investigation turns up nothing, Palin's stonewalling has permanently damaged her attempts to paint herself as someone who will change Washington -- because she's acting exactly like all the current Bush-Cheney cronies. The Rovian attempts to paint the investigation as a partisan witch hunt (please forgive the pun) have fallen flat, in part because the decision to investigate Troopergate was an incredibly bipartisan effort in the Alaska Legislature, in part because Palin had already promised to cooperate fully with the investigation and perhaps, most of all, because Alaskans don't like folks from DC swarming in to take over their state. It's that last point that maybe even Karl Rove underestimated.

Update:

Breaking News: Journalist Charges Dropped

2008-09-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

Charges dropped against journalists arrested in St. Paul.

Your action made all the difference.

St. Paul City Hall announced today that they are dropping all charges against journalists arrested while covering the protests outside the Republican National Convention -- including Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!

Your action made all the difference.

You and more than 62,000 other people signed our open letter demanding that the charges be dropped. The day after the convention, we delivered your signatures in person to the mayor of St. Paul.

Today’s great news happened because together, we responded quickly and spoke out strongly. This is your victory.

But before you celebrate, I need you to do one thing. Please ask three friends to join the Free Press network, so that the next time we need to act, we will have an even greater number of allies to add to our collective voice. Our struggle for an open and democratic media system is so crucial right now. We need your help bringing more people to the cause.

Tell your friends to promote better media.

Our task now is to ensure that our press remains free to report on the events, issues and stories that matter to our country, our communities, and our democracy.

We'll stay vigilant -- I hope you’ll join us.

Onward,

Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net

P.S. Please click here or copy and paste the message below into an e-mail to tell your friends about this exciting victory with Free Press.

Dear Friend,

Earlier this month, I -- along with 60,000 other members of Free Press -- signed a letter calling on St. Paul City Hall to drop the charges against Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and the other journalists who were arrested during the Republican National Convention.

Today, we found out that in response to public pressure, all of the charges were dropped!

I’m writing in hopes that you will join me and the growing media reform movement by becoming a Free Press "e-activist". It is free, and takes about 10 seconds: http://www.freepress.net/get_involved/e-activists

Free Press is a national, nonpartisan network of people like you and me who care about the future of our media. It is crucial that we increase our numbers in the fight for more hard hitting journalism, and independent media.

Please go to http://www.freepress.net/get_involved/e-activists

Know Your Stuff, Obama Supporters

2008-09-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

Whether convincing undecided voters or debating a McCain supporter in a public forum, it is essential to know your stuff. The Obama campaign has done a far better job fighting back against GOP messaging than I've ever seen, but there are unfortunately still too many lies not being rebutted.

This is an attempt to change all that. If you have a laptop or other portable device going into a debate or a discussion about Obama, have this open and ready to go; whatever inaccuracies you might encounter, you'll be prepared with a quick, clear, and confident answer.

The following contrast piece challenges McCain on the major issue frames of his candidacy (later organized into subgroups for easier reading and search capability):

Leadership and Experience

Ethics and Government Reform

National Security and Foreign Policy

Bipartisanship and Crossparty Appeal

Economy

First, a quick bullet point summary, then the full piece:

ShadowSD's diary :: ::

During the primary, McCain ditched every difference he had w/Bush to get nominated

McCain went from voting with Bush for 90% of the last 8 years to 100% this year

Many of McCain’s top campaign staff ran Bush’s campaign; his ‘town halls’ staged like Bush's

The last time the GOP tried to package someone as a reformer during an election, it was Bush

McCain never split w/Bush on Rumsfeld/Cheney, he said he would have hired them himself

Obama bucked his party during the primary, opposing health care mandates, addressing the future Social Security solvency crisis, and advocating teacher merit pay

Obama is endorsed by a long list of high profile conservatives and elected Republicans

Not one high profile progressive or Democrat endorses McCain (CT Dems booted JL in 06)

Obama bucked many of his own big donors during the primary to support the writers strike

Obama worked across the aisle in the Senate with Republicans like Dick Lugar and Tom Coburn

Obama pushed through strict ethics reforms against the will of many in both parties

Obama has the strongest reform record of any candidate in modern history

Obama pushed through the strongest ethics reform in his state for decades, The Gift Ban Act

Obama pushed through the strongest ethics reform at the federal level in decades, The Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act, co-sponsoring and authoring numerous other reform bills

McCain's single ethics reform accomplishment in 25 years is the McCain-Feingold bill

McCain says he has never requested an earmark, but he asked for and received a $10 million earmark in 2006 and a $14.3 million earmark in 2003

Obama pushed through a bipartisan bill making every earmark public knowledge

Obama will cut taxes for 95% of Americans; his middle class tax cut is 3 - 8 times bigger than McCain’s according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center

Obama’s budget adds up better than "we’ve seen in a Presidential candidate in a very long time"; his plan will leave 1.2 trillion dollars less debt than McCain’s (non-partisan TPC)

McCain had to check with his staff when asked how many houses he owns and what kind of car he drives; he spends $250,000 a year on house servants alone

US Troops overseas donated 6x more to Obama; our troops prefer his Iraq plan by 30 pts

Obama always urged focus on Al Qaeda in Afg/Pak while McCain/Bush focused on Iraq/Iran

Obama correctly predicted that invading Iraq would increase terrorism; Obama, alone among all candidates in urging focus on Pakistan last year, was vindicated by the recent turmoil there

Non-partisan Disabled Veterans of America scorecard: McCain 20%, Obama 80%

The Obama Presidential campaign is the first in living memory where average Americans own the biggest share: more than 50% of donations to Obama have been $25 or less, 80% have been $100 or less, and 93% have been $200 or less

"You would have to go back a century and a half to name an incoming president with so few debts to repay"

Obama and the DNC accept no federal lobbyist or PAC donations; McCain and the RNC do

McCain has 133 lobbyists working for his campaign; his top staff is mostly DC lobbyists

McCain got 10x more Top CEO donations than Obama in return for corporate tax breaks

McCain's flip in favor of drilling was rewarded immediately with big donations from oil execs

Obama has served 12 yrs at the federal and state level (4 yrs US Sen + 8 yrs IL Sen)

Obama co-sponsored 15 bills that became federal law and co-sponsored 570 bills

Obama sponsored 823 bills and cast over 4000 votes in the IL Senate

Obama would be the first President with 10+ yrs experience as a Constitutional Law Professor

Obama spent 3 years as the executive in charge of a budget that went from $70K to $400K while serving as a local community organizer in Chicago

Obama had 80 editors under him as President of the Harvard Law Review

Obama's runs a campaign with over 2000 employees, more than the White House staff

Obama got an International Relations specialty in college, later served 4 yrs on Sen Foreign Rel

Obama's combined time either in public service, studying foreign policy, or directly pertaining to Constitutional Law adds up to twenty-five years, as long as McCain has been in office

Obama’s record of experience is more diverse and in touch with America than McCain’s, as Obama understands how things work at the local, state, and federal level; McCain has zero local or state experience, with all his experience in office taking place in Washington DC

Leadership and Experience

Unique Strengths

Barack Obama's diverse heritage provides an inherent credibility in the world's two most explosive regions (Africa and the Middle East) that no past leader has been able to offer America; his election would consequently improve our standing and security more on the first day than McCain could in four years, as his "upbringing would serve us well if he were president, both in the understanding he would bring to issues of America's role in the world and in terms of how the world views America". Top academic experts in foreign policy say Obama's informal experience offers more insight than any conventional expertise, and top journalists on the subject of the Middle East call him "the only hope for the US in the Muslim world", as we're otherwise "facing two or three decades of problems in the Mideast, with 1.2 billion Muslims". Conservative Andrew Sullivan puts it best: "If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can." Obama's rise has the Muslim World giving America a second look, and he is already viewed with more confidence in 22 countries than McCain.

Foreign Policy Resume

Aside from spending years of his childhood in Indonesia and earning an International Relations Major major in college, Barack Obama has spent four years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; in that time, he has become the most traveled Freshman Senator, he helped negotiate a Nigeria cease fire, he has reduced loose weapons stockpiles in Russia, and he spoke out in Kenya and South Africa against the violence in Darfur. By 2007, it was noted how Obama was "shaping the foreign policy debate", and how he was "putting more substance into his pitch than candidates often do"; since then, everyone from bipartisan watchdog groups to American soldiers have noted that Obama is the candidate of substance and not McCain. Indeed, McCain's foreign policy experience is unimpressive according to his own campaign website bio and wikipedia bio, and he appears outright inept traveling abroad when compared to Obama: "[McCain] looked to Lieberman several times for reassurance on his answers and seemed a little flummoxed... but Obama, who was making only his second visit to Israel, knew precisely what he wanted to say about the most intricate issues confronting and concerning Israel, and expressed himself clearly, even stridently on key subjects."

Domestic Resume

Every President must swear to protect and preserve our Constitution, and Obama would be the only Constitutional Law Professor to become President after having instructed in that field for over a decade; this experience will have a positive effect on everything from judicial appointments to protecting liberty to respecting the limits of executive power. Obama went on to serve for eight years in the Illinois Senate, adding state legislative experience to his local grassroots work as a community organizer; he sponsored 823 bills and cast over 4000 votes in the state senate, and as a US Senator, co-sponsored 570 bills, including 15 which became law. It is exceedingly rare in history for a Presidential candidate to understand first-hand how things work at the local, state, AND federal level; Barack Obama has that experience, while John McCain has only served at the federal level. Furthermore, Obama's time either in public service or pertaining directly to Constitutional Law adds up to twenty-five years, the same amount of time John McCain has been in elected office.

Executive Leadership

While John McCain's only executive experience is running his campaign, Obama has a more diverse resume that began over twenty years ago; as director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago for three years, the budget Obama oversaw went from $70,000 to $400,000, and as President of the Harvard Law Review, Obama had eighty people working under him. During this year's Democratic primary, Obama had 1280 employees at a cost of 2.61 million dollars a month, which increased to over 2000 employees in the general election, more than the President's White House staff; Obama built his campaign from the ground up to the largest in history, rejecting money from political action committees and federal lobbyists, while McCain nearly ran his campaign into bankruptcy despite taking money from all comers, almost eliminating himself from the Republican primary six months before all his rivals' campaigns could collapse. Obama's leadership in running a tight campaign, described as a well-oiled machine that is devoid of internal struggle, gives us an insight into how he would lead as President; McCain's executive leadership since the primary, meanwhile, has remained dismal: "McCain's aides acknowledge frustration among fellow Republicans for the slow-to-start campaign." His missteps have brought into question his ability to lead, he has made himself appear unpresidential, and his campaign has gone so far in thwarting responsibility as to claim that McCain does not speak for McCain; his campaign website has a supporters page which is still to this day blank, despite the story being publicly mocked months ago. Questions about McCain's leadership go back much further, however, from assaulting a foreign leader in 1987 to pushing an old lady in a wheelchair in 1996 to repeatedly exploding in anger at members of his own party; as a result, even McCain's Naval Academy classmate and fellow POW refuses to vote for him. John McCain ate cake with President Bush while Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and when floods hit the Midwest earlier this summer, McCain issued a statement while Obama grabbed a shovel to fill sandbags, also organizing campaign supporters online to deploy volunteers and donations for disaster relief; by the time McCain got there for a campaign appearance one week later, he went against the explicit wishes of the Iowa Governor not to distract from relief efforts, while Obama canceled his campaign appearance that week. McCain has barely showed up for work in the Senate this year, missing 63% of the votes in 2008, and he was the sole absence on a Medicare vote for which even Ted Kennedy showed up despite his cancer; furthermore, for someone whose career in office has been an endless string of apologies for offending people, McCain hardly seems a leader with good judgment, but someone who has simply relied on The Legend of John McCain to attack others freely and without reprisal (the most chilling and disheartening irony being that by the very laws put into place by Bush and McCain, McCain's mistreatment in captivity no longer qualifies as torture).

Ethics and Government Reform

Overspending and Corruption

Dozens of Republicans have been arrested and indicted in just the last few years for corruption and other crimes, and no less than archconservative Bob Novak points out that earmarks went up 285 percent when Republicans had control of Congress, representing the biggest increase in history. While Barack Obama does not assert that all earmarks should be done away with, he argues that the majority of them are wasteful, and he has worked to curtail them through increased transparency and accountability; Obama spearheaded and passed a bipartisan bill with Senator Tom Coburn that has tracked one trillion dollars of federal spending, making every earmark, grant, loan, and contract public knowledge, as well as the lawmakers who enabled them. John McCain rejects all earmarks universally in his rhetoric and claims to have never requested one, but asked for and received a 10 million dollar earmark in 2006 and a 14.3 million dollar earmark in 2003.

Lobbyists and Influence

Obama has a stronger reform record than any Presidential candidate in modern history, having sponsored and passed the strongest ethics reform bill at the state level in decades, The Gift Ban Act, as well as the strongest ethics reform bill at the federal level in decades, The Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act. He has also co-sponsored public finance reform in Presidential and Senate races, he has been a leading advocate for a bill to require Senate candidates to file their disclosures electronically, and he authored the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, as well as a bill to improve voter access to polling places; John McCain's single reform accomplishment after twenty-five years in the Senate is the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill. Obama, with no federal lobbyist/PAC money and over two million contributors, most of them small donors, is as a result not indebted to lobbyists and special interests; in fact, "you would have to go back a century and a half to name an incoming president with so few debts to repay". McCain's campaign staff full of lobbyists is well documented, with at least 133 lobbyists running his campaign and raising money for him, his campaign manager lobbying from aboard the Straight Talk Express, and another lobbyist advisor connected with a bribery scandal involving access to the Bush administration; McCain's change in position to support oil drilling gained him a huge spike in donations from oil executives, he has received ten times as much money from top CEO's as Obama in return for offering huge corporate tax breaks, and he has spent Congressional money on his wealthy donors, not to mention that his runningmate is a fellow faux reformer who is about to be deposed in an ethics probe. Conservative George Will says of McCain: "although his campaign is run by lobbyists; and although his dealings with lobbyists have generated what he, when judging the behavior of others, calls corrupt appearances; and although he has profited from his manipulation of the taxpayer-funding system that is celebrated by reformers...he seems sincerely to consider it theoretically impossible for him to commit the offenses of appearances that he incessantly ascribes to others." McCain gripes that Obama did not accept public financing this year, but Obama only suggested that he might, given that McCain could easily go around those rules with ads from independent 527 groups; sure enough, not only is the McCain campaign relying on 527s as their principal means of attacking Obama, but they have even been caught in illegal message coordination with 527s, whereas Obama got the MoveOn 527 to shut down and changed DNC policy to no longer accept PAC or federal lobbyist money. The fact is that despite McCain's griping, Americans prefer a large base of small donors over the current broken public financing system, and the polls back that up; the Obama Presidential campaign is the first in living memory where average Americans own a majority share, as more than 50% of donations to Obama have been $25 or less, 80% of them have been $100 or less, and 93% of them have been $200 or less. This is by far the closest to true public financing in American history, a progressive milestone, and yet at the same time the conservative notion of voluntary donations only is adhered to; the McCain campaign's mix of affluent donors and taxpayer money, on the other hand, satisfies neither approach.

Character and Credibility

Obama believes in authenticity and consistency as a necessary starting point: "I want to be saying the same thing in the primary as I'm saying in the general election as I'm saying in the Oval Office. I don't want to make promises that I cannot keep. I don't want to simplify issues or demagogue issues simply to win short-term favor. We need to be straight with the American people." The evidence shows that Obama has never backed off of any of his core promises, and as conservative David Brooks puts it: "I’ve been poring over press clippings from Obama’s past, looking for inconsistencies and flip-flops. There are virtually none." Obama has been noted for his "straight-ahead style" and "refusing to back-slap or pander", breaking with the old approach to politics: "the most striking thing to me about the Senator's performances was the scrupulous honesty of his answers, his insistence on delivering bad news when necessary"; "that's Obama's approach, and in a country where people increasingly seem to regard politicians as professional liars, no wonder people find it refreshing." In contrast, John McCain, known and respected in 2000 for being a straight shooter, is now "making diametrically opposed policy promises to different audiences at the same time" and "talking out of both sides of his mouth"; his supposedly open town halls are in fact pre-staged events by the local Republican Party with planted questions in the audience, often held at the facilities of corporations that support John McCain. With McCain's National Online Communications Director busted impersonating an undecided voter online, the campaign caught lying about being in a cone of silence at Saddleback, and McCain himself lifting his Cross in the Dirt story from one of his favorite authors, his campaign's willingness to lie in this election has severely damaged his credibility; on top of it all, after claiming for months that Obama was not ready to lead, McCain chose a runningmate with zero foreign policy experience: "It's about honesty. The question should be whether McCain -- and all the other Republicans who have been going on for months about Obama's dangerous lack of foreign policy experience -- ever meant a word of it. And the answer is apparently not."

National Security and Foreign Policy

Terrorism

John McCain is a long time neoconservative, a philosophy based on the perceived right to occupy other countries and spread democracy by force: "Neoconservative champions of an 'American Empire'... chafe at the notion that there are, or should be, limits to American power or that the American interest should be defined as anything less than a globe-spanning, benevolent imperium." McCain continues to believe in this foreign policy perspective despite the fact that Osama Bin Laden has commended it for making Al Qaeda's job easier. Bin Laden's goal to frame the battle against terrorism as a holy war between Muslims and Christians has also been aided by John McCain's willingness to define alliances along religious lines, and by his refusal to denounce his campaign spokeperson's blanket statement that Muslims want us all to "kneel or they're going to kill us"; the fact is that America is not fighting a WWIV against terrorism, as terrorism can only ultimately be defeated in the long run by local negotiation and not outside military force. Due to being dominated by a failed neoconservative ideology, "Republicans are facing deep doubts about whether they can be capable stewards of the country’s foreign policy"; in addition to failing to see the clues leading up to 9/11, strengthening terrorists by lumping them all together, and prisons for terrorists often holding the wrong men, our government's torture of captives and mismanagement of justice has resulted in an inability to prosecute the 20th 9/11 hijacker and Bin Laden's right hand man - both of whom went free. GOP donors have been charged with aiding terrorists in Afghanistan, one of McCain's top donor firms has plead guilty to funding a terrorist group in Columbia, and McCain's campaign manager has remarked that a terrorist attack would be a big advantage for their campaign. While John McCain is pushing a schizophrenic foreign policy platform to satisfy the same old neoconservative thinking, Obama would be the first post Cold War President, giving him the ability to identify and track down terrorist cells unhindered by a dated mindset that only understands warring nation states; Obama correctly predicted in 2002 that the war in Iraq would "strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda", and was the sole Presidential candidate who insisted on talking about terrorism in Pakistan last summer, for which he was mocked at the time, but which now looks quite prescient after the assassination of their Prime Minister and resignation of their President.

Troops

US troops overseas contributed six times as much to Barack Obama as they did to John McCain; McCain has voted against increasing veterans benefits ten times since 2003, and despite his multimillion dollar fortune, accepts a yearly $58,000 veterans disability check while opposing an Obama supported bill to give all veterans more benefits; John McCain has also said the VA should stop treating routine medical problems, has suggested bringing back the draft, and receives a score of 20 out of 100 from the Disabled Veterans of America, while Obama gets an 80 out of 100. Our troops support Barack Obama's Iraq policy over John McCain's by thirty percentage points, and 70.6% of US military donations last spring went to candidates in favor of withdrawing from Iraq.

Iraq

Despite the recent bombshell that the White House forged a document to sell the war in Iraq, and the former top US commander in Iraq's admission that the war was really just about oil, McCain continues to believe the Iraq war was and is the right thing to do, having no problem with us staying for "a hundred" or "ten thousand years"; this is despite reports of our government using assassins, chemical weapons, and distributing religious coins to spread Christianity, validating anti-American terrorist propaganda. John McCain said just one month after 9/11 that invading Iraq was a priority over catching Bin Laden, and his supposed maverick split with the Bush administration on Rumsfeld is a fiction, as he would have chosen Rumsfeld and Cheney himself; McCain also claims to have been more restrained than Bush in not saying things like Mission Accomplished, but the facts show he was for Mission Accomplished before he was against it. McCain has recently confused Iraq with Afganistan, Sunnis with Shiites, and has contradicted himself repeatedly in the course of the same interview on the issue of timetables, at one point calling Obama's withdrawal plan a "pretty good timetable"; with Iraq Prime Minister Maliki saying that a timetable is a sign of victory and not defeat, that Obama's sixteen month plan is the right time frame, and that the surge is NOT the reason for the turnaround in Iraq, McCain has lost the national security advantage to Obama.

Iran

The theocratic government of Iran, happy with neoconservatives for strengthening Iran's regional influence by deposing the governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, endorsed George Bush in the 2004 election. Obama's position of talking to our adversaries instead of the neoconservative "ignore or invade" approach is preferred by 67% of the American public, and even the Bush Administration ended up talking to Iran in recent months for the first time. A small group of neocons, the same people who pushed for invading Iraq, go as far as to regularly compare the Iranian President to Hitler in their effort to whip up a frenzy that will result in invading Iran: "They are wrong and recent history tells us they are dangerous." John McCain has joked about bombing Iran with laughter and song.

Israel-Palestine

John McCain supported talks with Hamas and had a fundraiser on one of his finance committees who was an agent of Hezbollah. Obama's support for Israel's security is coupled with an equal respect for the plight of the Palestinian people, as evidenced by statements that suggest he would be the most evenhanded President regarding the conflict that we have ever had; Obama is the first candidate ever to, in the course of addressing Jewish groups, "suggest that there is any onus on the Jewish state when it comes to making peace with its neighbors". With policies of neoconservative overreach having damaged Israel's security as much as America's, such evenhandedness would be a welcome change for both sides of the conflict.

Bipartisanship and Cross Party Appeal

Liberty

With self-identified libertarians, voters who strongly support individual freedom and non-interventionalism, the neoconservative takeover of the Republican Party has soured them on the GOP, as the Democratic Party looks like more and more of a natural ally; Obama leads by fifteen points among libertarians, and some conservatives speculate that Obama is a libertarian paternalist.

Endorsements

Obama's crossover appeal to conservatives goes way beyond libertarian voters, however, as he has been endorsed by such unlikely figures as Contract With America co-writer Larry Hunter, conservative blogger Dorothy King, Bush biographer Steven Mansfield, Bush pastor Kirbyjohn Caldwell, former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, former neoconservative Francis Fukuyama, National Review senior editor Jeffrey Hart, and Reagan Assistant Attorney General Doug Kmiec; other lifelong Republicans to endorse Obama include Susan Eisenhower, former GOP Congressman Jim Leach, Republican mayor Jim Whitaker, GOP Congressional Nominee Joel Haugen, Reagan policy advisor Bruce Bartlett, Republican mayor Lou Thieblemont, and Reagan Assistant Secretary of the Army Delbert Spurlock, along with countless individual Americans who are for the first time voting Democratic this year. When it comes to Obama, Republican women "don't see him as a partisan", and "are expressing concerns about John McCain", while even conservatives who haven't endorsed Obama have remarked that many of his policies, such as his education plan, are better than McCain's; in contrast, not one policy position of John McCain's has been described as superior to Obama's by a single moderate or progressive journalist, nor is there a single high-profile Democratic endorsement of McCain (Joe Lieberman doesn't count, having changed his registration from Democrat over two years ago after losing his primary).

Bucking The Party Establishment

Unlike John McCain, who eventually ditched every single policy position where he had broken with his own party in order to win the Republican nomination, Barack Obama went through the entire Democratic primary insisting on positions that infuriated progressives and challenged Democratic orthodoxy, such as opposing universal health care mandates, addressing the future Social Security crisis, and advocating merit pay for teachers; he even went against many of his own major donors to support the writers' strike. The idea that Obama "moved to the middle" after winning the nomination requires ignoring all those instances, and does not hold up on closer examination, as Obama has always been consistent in his rejection of doctrinal filters. As even one Republican consultant put it during the Democratic primary, Obama is "not trying to cobble together the old Democratic coalition of interest groups"; while McCain has a record of bipartisan work with the Gang of 14 in the Senate, Obama has also worked across the aisle with Republicans such as Dick Lugar and Tom Coburn, his anti-earmark bill with the latter being met by strong resistance from many Democrats, and his ethics reform bills receiving a similar response from members of his party. Although Obama is progressive on many issues, "in his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative. There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean"; in an analysis of foreign policy positions, "Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist", and according to conservative David Brooks, Obama has "a worldview that precedes policy positions" and "a conservative temperament". Some Republicans open to Obama "see his primary advantage in prosecuting the war on Islamist terrorism... prepared to set their own ideological preferences to one side in favor of what Obama offers America in a critical moment in our dealings with the rest of the world"; for others, Obama's efforts to keep the Harvard Law Review balanced as its President, accomplished by respecting the views of its conservative minority, reveals how he will govern. It has also been argued that Obama's approach, involving the emphasis on strong families and personal responsibility in speeches delivered to inner city audiences, is actually a new path altogether which surpasses "either the liberal or conservative prescriptions".

No Maverick

With a record of voting with George W. Bush 90% of the time and rising, John McCain's views are costing him among moderate to liberal Republican voters; McCain's allegedly moderate record on energy and the environment is a fiction, and his position against a woman's right to choose is far outside the mainstream. While McCain's phony reformer image has long been propped up, it has fallen apart under a desire to be President in the worst way, and a staff of Bush advisers who have McCain so far out of the decision making process that there is actually someone on his campaign to make sure McCain sticks to the McCain campaign's message.

Economy

Overview

Bush and the GOP's effect on the economy has resulted in the worst severe poverty since 1975, with the number of severely poor Americans growing by 26 percent between 2000 and 2005, and the worst job creation since the Great Depression; this has left America with the worst child poverty, education, and life expectancy of all civilized countries, and resulted in 38% of Americans struggling to pay for food. In addition to the world's largest bond fund manager declaring that tax cuts for the rich and deregulation have been a failure, the evidence shows that Democratic Presidents are better for the economy, and that since 1900, Democratic Presidents have been better for growth, employment, the stock market, and reducing the deficit.

Taxes

Obama's tax plan will cut middle class taxes three to eight times as much as McCain's plan according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, and will cut taxes for 95% of Americans; despite their other criticisms, the conservative Wall Street Journal admits "For Obama, Taxes Are About Fairness", and even the ultraconservative Weekly Standard notes that "McCain's charge that Obama is planning a massive tax increase doesn't apply", adding that, "every day that passes makes one thing clearer and clearer: Barack Obama knows precisely what he wants to do to the U.S. economy, and John McCain is intent on proving his self-confessed lack of knowledge with a charming set of homilies." Indeed, McCain has been inconsistent on tax cuts; he embraces thirty cent gas tax relief gimmicks and claims to want a level playing field, but he has no problem with the fact that Republican policies impose a hidden deficit tax of more than $1 per gallon of gas, or the fact that 2/3 of US corporations paid no annual taxes from 1998-2005.

Solvency

Obama explains how to pay for his programs better than any Presidential candidate in recent history: "his agenda actually does come pretty close to adding up. It's really not normal for a candidate's budget numbers to be even in the near ballpark of making sense... when was the last time we had a presidential candidate who came [so] close? Hell, I think McCain's plan, if you put a number to it, would fail to add up by about ten times that amount. Obama's is the most restrained, least pandering budget plan we've seen in a presidential campaign for a very long time." John McCain said that he does not understand the issue of economics as well as he should, and his economic plan is a mess of contradictions that has several serious problems, including a substantial increase to the national debt: "according to the Tax Policy Center, over the course of a decade Obama's plan would result in a national debt over one trillion dollars smaller than you would get under McCain's plan." While Obama's plan has received endorsements from Nobel Prize economists and the SEC chairs under Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, the McCain campaign had to trick 300 economists into signing a short statement later attached to an economic plan they never read.

Out of Touch

Unlike Barack Obama - who was born to an eighteen year old single mom, who took a $13,000 a year community service job, and who was only able to pay off his student loans in the last couple of years - John McCain has had access to tens of millions of dollars for the last three decades and has never had to stress about paying a bill in that time. McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns, doesn't know what kind of car he drives, and spends $250,000 a year on house servants; when asked about what income level represents the line between middle class and rich, McCain said five million dollars a year. His chief economic adviser says we have become a nation of whiners and that the recession is all in our minds, his chief adviser on health care said that anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, and McCain himself called Social Security a disgrace.

The Failing Republican Economy - How our Money is McAilin’

2008-09-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

The State of the Nation

The Economy is Failin’,
Our Money is McAilin’,
Yet Republicans all are hailin’
The choice of Sarah Palin.

Karl Rove keeps up his wailin’,
When he really deserves a jailin’!
While the taxpayers give Fanny and Freddie a bailin’ [out],
Up in Maine, the Bushes and McCains go sailin’.

Why I Am Voting Republican

2008-09-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

I'm voting Republican because being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

I'm voting Republican because Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.

I'm voting Republican because "Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

I'm voting Republican because a woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

I'm voting Republican because Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of
homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

I'm voting Republican because the best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

I'm voting Republican because group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

I'm voting Republican because if condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

I'm voting Republican because a good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

I'm voting Republican because HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.

I'm voting Republican because providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

I'm voting Republican because global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

I'm voting Republican because Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

I'm voting Republican because a president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

I'm voting Republican because Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

I'm voting Republican because the public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

I'm voting Republican because what Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

I'm voting Republican because trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

Funny picture, sad truth

2008-09-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin- the new Cheney!

One thing she’s not hiding very well is her Cheney-like penchant for secrecy and inappropriate use of “official” cover to protect e-mails she shared outside of official circles.

The Palin administration won’t release hundreds of emails from her office, claiming they cover confidential policy matters. Then why do the subject lines refer to a political foe, a journalist, and non-policy topics?
More intriguing than any email correspondence contained in the four boxes was what was not released: about 1100 emails. Palin’s office provided McLeod with a 78-page list (PDF) cataloging the emails it was withholding. Many of them had been written by Palin or sent to her. Palin’s office claimed most of the undisclosed emails were exempt from release because they were covered by the “executive” or “deliberative process” privileges that protect communications between Palin and her aides about policy matters. But the subject lines of some of the withheld emails suggest they were not related to policy matters. Several refer to one of Palin’s political foes, others to a well-known Alaskan journalist. Moreover, some of the withhold emails were CC’ed to Todd Palin, the governor’s husband. Todd Palin—a.k.a. the First Dude—holds no official state position (though he has been a close and influential adviser for Governor Palin). The fact that Palin and her aides shared these emails with a citizen outside the government undercuts the claim that they must be protected under executive privilege. [Independent Alaskan government watchdog Andrée] McLeod asks, “What is Sarah Palin hiding?”

Sarah Palin

2008-09-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin's speech last night told us a lot about her. It told us that she can distort the facts and deliver mean-spirited zingers with the best of them. But it didn't tell us the truth about Sarah Palin's extremist positions. The more that people know her far-right views, the less they support her. Can you write a letter to the editor of your local paper?

Write a letter

Did you watch Sarah Palin's speech last night? The speech told us a lot about her.

It told us that she can distort the facts and deliver mean-spirited zingers with the best of them. It told us that if Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter ever need a stand-in, she'd be a great pick.

It told us that she can be condescending and dismissive of the real work Barack Obama did helping real people on the South Side of Chicago. It told us that she can uphold the long Republican tradition of lying about Democratic tax cuts—even though Obama's plan would give Americans a bigger break than McCain's.

But the speech—written by one of President Bush's speechwriters—didn't tell us the truth about Sarah Palin's extremist positions. And the more that people know her far-right views, the less they support her. (There's a partial list below.)

One of the best ways to get the word out about Palin is to write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Today's a great day to write because this is very relevant—it just happened last night. Plus, our online tool makes it easy and has great tips. Please take a few minutes to write a quick letter to the editor now:

http://pol.moveon.org/lte?campaign_id=95&id=13709-7018451-0O0KI1x&t=3

Palin's speech and the reaction to it also made clear why McCain picked her. It wasn't a decision about who's most qualified to serve a heart-beat away from the presidency—it was a political decision about pleasing the far-right base of the Republican party.

Writing a letter to your local paper is a great way to make sure voters understand that. The opinion pages are the most widely-read pages of the newspaper. Write today, and your letter's a lot more likely to get published because it's so topical. It'll help sway the editorial board too.

Here are a bunch of points you might want to include in your letter:

Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is "God's task." She's even admitted she hasn't thought about the war much—just last year she was quoted saying, "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq." ^{1, 2}

Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party. Six months ago, Palin told members of the group—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to "keep up the good work" and "wished the party luck on what she called its 'inspiring convention.'" ³

Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools. She hasn't made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact.⁴

Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being manmade." ⁵

Palin has close ties to Big Oil. Her inauguration was even sponsored by BP. ⁶

Palin is extremely anti-choice. She doesn't even support abortion in the case of rape or incest. ⁷

Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She's said she will only support abstinence-only approaches. ⁸

As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library. Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, "news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor." ⁹

She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere (before she opposed it). Palin claimed that she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But in 2006, Palin supported the project repeatedly, saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." ¹⁰

The plain fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin did a bang-up job delivering a Karl Rove-style political attack speech last night. That makes her a skilled politician but it doesn't make her views any more palatable for voters. Americans don't really want another far-right, anti-science ideologue in the White House.

Please help get the word out about where Sarah Palin really stands on the issues.

http://pol.moveon.org/lte?campaign_id=95&id=13709-7018451-0O0KI1x&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Ilyse, Wes, Karin and the rest of the team

P.S. If you haven't seen it, check out the Daily Show clip on Palin. It's worth a watch
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24753&id=13709-7018451-0O0KI1x&t=5

Sources
1. "Palin: Iraq war 'a task that is from God'," Associated Press, September 3, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24701&id=13709-7018451-0O0KI1x&t=6

2. "Palin wasn't 'really focused much' on the Iraq war," ThinkProgress, August 30, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24702&id=13709-7018451-0O0KI1x&t=7

3. "The Sarah Palin Digest," ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/

4. "McCain and Palin differ on issues," Associated Press, September 3, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24703&id=13709-7018451-0O0KI1x&t=8

5. Ibid

6. The Sarah Palin Digest," ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/

7. Ibid

8. Ibid.

9. "Mayor Palin: A Rough Record," Time, September 2, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24704&id=13709-7018451-0O0KI1x&t=9

10. The Sarah Palin Digest," ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/

Make Impeachment an Inescapable Election Issue

2008-09-03T15:46:00.000-07:00

No Statue of Limitations on Impeachment,
Not Too Late to Punish Criminals

Cindy Sheehan, Congressional candidate in San Francisco, yesterday issued a call to recommit ourselves to the impeachment fight. She wrote, "Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Oh) has courageously introduced impeachment articles against the criminals, George Bush and Dick Cheney, and we have a short time now to show the executive branch (and the complicit members of the legislative branch) that they are not above the law and that no one can abuse our Constitution and/or commit our young people to die and kill innocents in wars for profit based on lies and greed."

Cindy is absolutely right. We have taken more than a few steps along the road to impeachment. Over 1,013,000 people have signed the ImpeachBush referendum, we've marched, we've sat-in, we've taken out prominent advertisements in major newspapers, and we've tirelessly called and written our legislative representatives. Click this link to make a donation to help the impeachment movement continue to move forward.

And regardless of how the Democratic leadership wished to avoid the issue, it could not be done. At last, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Oh) courageously introduced impeachment articles against George Bush and Dick Cheney, the criminals Cindy aptly calls "a stain on this republic."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- whom Cindy Sheehan is running against -- recently justified her opposition impeachment, claiming in Time Magazine that, "the Republicans would like nothing better than for us to focus on impeachment." Nothing could be further from the truth! John McCain and the Republican National Committee are hoping that the unpopular Bush administration will simply fade away and that our justified anger will fade away with it.

But their multiple crimes are too much to forget, too atrocious to allow go unpunished. Contrary to popular belief, there is not a statue of limitations on impeachment. Impeaching an elected official after they leave office prevents them from holding any future office, strips them of their government pension, and above all sends a message that the people of this country mean business. Whoever is elected next will know better.

This is actually a time of tremendous opportunity for the impeachment movement. During election season, all the incumbents and their contenders are forced to take up the people's issues -- like impeachment. The question is whether we will take action today to make impeachment an inescapable do-or-die issue for the Democratic incumbents.

Click this link to make a donation and allow the impeachment movement to take advantage of this important window of opportunity.

Mr. Bush, you forgot something

2008-09-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

In his speech last night to the Republican National Convention, President Bush talked about a lot of different things: Hurricane Gustav, oil drilling, a painting of a mountain in Texas, and his wife Laura.

But there was something missing from Bush's speech -- any mention whatsoever of the economy.

Of course, he had good reason to avoid this topic. Right now the economy is in shambles for the majority of Americans. Unemployment is way up, wages are down, millions of homes are in foreclosure -- and much of the blame falls on George W. Bush.

Now John McCain is proposing an economic plan that doubles-down on Bush's failed policies. Like the President, McCain probably doesn't want to talk a whole lot about this -- in fact he readily admits the economy is not his strong suit. Last December, McCain told the Boston Globe,

"The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."

Well, we understand that McCain just wants continue Bush's awful economic policies, and it's up to us to make sure all Americans know just how disastrous McCain's economic proposals are.

Help spread the word about McCain's dangerous economic plan -- use our simple tool to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper:

http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/bushforgot

As you watch the convention over the next couple days, you'll continue hear very little about the current problems with the U.S. economy.

That's because according to George Bush and John McCain, the economy is doing just fine. As John McCain said in an interview on August 20th,

"I still believe the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

That sounds a lot like what George Bush said just ten days earlier:

"The American economy is the envy of the world, and we need to keep it that way... The fundamentals of our economy are strong."

We've already seen what happens when an out-of-touch president doles out billions in tax cuts to big corporations and the top ten percent. And now John McCain is promising more of the same.

Help make sure all Americans know the true cost of John McCain's economic proposals. Write a letter to the editor right now:

http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/bushforgot

George Bush has refused to acknowledge that our economy isn't working for the majority of Americans, and he's failed to take responsibility for the damage his policies have caused.

Now John McCain is showing that he is equally out of touch, offering more of the same misguided policies and lack of accountability.

If they won't talk about it, then we will:

http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/bushforgot

Sincerely,

Jeremy Funk
Americans United for Change

Rescue, Not Repression in the Gulf Coast

2008-09-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

Republican National Convention, St. Paul:

Repression of protesters at the RNC. For days we've been receiving reports of raids on private homes and meeting places. Federal authorities seem intent on keeping people in custody until after planned protests at the Republican Convention, seizing video cameras, flyers about protest, and detaining people for hours in shackles. The RNC itself is being scaled back because of Hurricane Gustav. But what about the repression?

I'll be speaking with Ann Wright, John Nichols, and Ray McGovern Wednesday September 3 on the Protest Stage at the Excel Arena. More info at Protest Stage at 4:00 pm. World Can't Wait will have the stage at 4pm. More at ImpeachforPeace.org

More coverage of DNC protests in Denver.

ALERT: On Hurricane Gustav and the Government's Response

NEEDED: Rescue Not Repression

As Hurricane Gustav approaches the Gulf Coast, threatening great damage, we who know how the Bush regime refused to rescue people three years ago, and instead treated people as criminals and refused to allow them to return, are watching. And so are people around the world.

Already Mayor Ray Nagin and other officials have issued threats toward anyone who does not evacuate and imposed a 24 hour curfew, thereby laying the groundwork to imprison anyone who has not had the means to evacuate. Nagin has ominously promised that anyone caught "looting" will go directly to Angola State Prison. Reports are emerging of families being separated during evacuation efforts and people being deposited in overcrowded shelters in extremely remote, far-flung places. It is clear that many thousands will suffer tremendous personal losses due to the slowness of the U.S. government in repairing and rebuilding levees.

The real horror of Katrina was not "looters" but the fact that human beings were abandoned and - in some cases - forced back into the floodwaters by armed National Guardsmen and police. Prisoners were left locked in their cells as putrid flood-waters rose. Families on rooftops were passed over by government helicopters for days. Troops were taken off rescue missions and sent back in with orders, issued by Governor Blanco, to "shoot to kill." Those who were finally evacuated were sent to distant and often hostile places, separated from their loved ones, and thousands have still not been provided the resources to return. Police repression and brutality were rampant. Civilian efforts to assist those in most desperate need were met with repression and people were prevented from offering their assistance. PEOPLE DIED AND SUFFERED UNNECESSARILY.

We, the undersigned, are putting the U.S. government on notice:

We have not forgotten and will not tolerate a repeat of any of the criminal negligence that caused unnecessary deaths and incalculable suffering during Hurricane Katrina.
We demand that people be rescued from Hurricane Gustav, and have their basic needs met in a humane way.
We will look beneath the headlines and the soundbites and watch closely the government response and the conditions of the people.
We pledge to take meaningful political action to protest government inaction and resist government repression against those who need rescue and assistance or against those who are seeking to aid those in need.

Debra Sweet, National Director, World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

Sunsara Taylor, Revolution Newspaper and Advisory Board Member of World Can't Wait

Republican National Convention Convergence Center Raided

2008-08-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

I just received this e-mail, and I am completely appalled by the level Big Business and the Religious Right will go to stifle Free Speech.

Kris

I am forwarding this email to everyone who needs to know this information. Starhawk went to St Paul to help organize peaceful protests during the RNC, and last night the closed theater they're using as a staging ground and training center was raided by police, claiming they are terrorists and have bombs.
Please forward this email to everyone you know and get the word out!

NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.

It's Friday night.
Our Pagan Cluster is sitting on the
bluff of the Mississippi having our first real meeting, when Lisa gets a

call. The cops are raiding the Convergence Center, where we're organizing
meetings and trainings for the protests against the Republican National

Convention. It's not a role play, the caller says. It's real.

Instantly, we jump up and hurry back the six or eight blocks to the old

theater we are using for meetings, trainings and social gatherings. I have
spent the last two days doing magical activism trainings,
teaching people how to stay calm and grounded in emergency situations and
when things get chaotic. Now it's time to put the training into practice.

Aaron, a tall, red-headed young man who could be one of my nephews strides
along beside me. "Are you grounded?" I ask him. He nods, and runs ahead.

Nobody can keep up with Lisa, who speeds ahead like an
arrow, walking, not running, but still covering the ground quickly.
Andy and I
trail behind. We¹re often street buddies, because we¹re both big, slow,
and supremely calm and stubborn, willing to wade into almost any situation and
become the immovable object.

We're stopped by a line of cops just before we reach the

building. They refuse to let us through, or to move their van which is

blocking Scarecrow's car. There's an investigation underway, they say, and
won't say more.

Brush, our dear friend, is inside, having gone to a jail solidarity meeting,
ironically enough.
So are two very young people who had

just joined our cluster that night. I try calling Brush's cell phone, but get no reply.

We wait. That's what you do when the cops have guns trained on kids inside

a building. You wait, and witness, and make phone calls, and try to think
of useful things to do.

We call lawyers. We call politicians. We try to call media.
We call
friends who might know politicians and media.

Through the kitchen door, we can see young kids sitting on
the floor, handcuffed.
We walk across the street, back, made more

phone calls. An ambulance is parked in front, and the paramedics head into
the building, leaving a gurney ready.
Susu, from her car around the
corner, reports that the cops have been grabbing pedestrians from the street,
forcing them down to the ground, handcuffing them.

Song, one of the local organizers, calls her City Council member.
She wants
to call the Mayor, Chris Coleman, who has promised that St. Paul will be as
welcoming to protesters as to delegates, but no one has his home number.

What I have forgotten to tell people at the training is how much of an
action is just this: tense, boring waiting, with a knot of anxiety in your

stomach and your feet starting to hurt. Song talks to a helpful neighbor,

who's come over to find out what's happening. He knows where the mayor
lives, says it's just a few blocks away, and draws us a map.

We decide to go and call on the Mayor, who could call off the cops.
About
five of us troop down there, through the soft night and a neighborhood of
comfortable homes and wide lawns on the bluffs above the Mississippi.
The
Mayor's house is a comfortable Dutch Colonial, and lights were on inside.

We decide that just a few of us will go to the door, so as not to look

intimidating. Song is a round, soft-bodied middle-aged woman with a sweet

face. Ellen is a tiny brunette with a gap-toothed smile, and Lisa,
formidable organizer though she is, looks slight and unthreatening.
The

rest of us hang back. Someone opens the door. Our friends have a
conversation with the mayors' wife, who is not pleased to
be visited by constituents late at night, and who tells us we should call

the office. The Mayor, she says, is asleep, and she will not wake him up.

We think a mayor who was doing his job would get up and go
see what's going on. Nonetheless, we head back to the convergence space.

A protestor has been released from the building. A small crowd has gathered
across the street, and Fox News has arrived.
They interview
Song, who does her first ever Fox media spot.
She tells them the
truth, that people were in there watching movies,a documentary about Meridel Le

Seuer. Meridel would be proud, and I'm glad she is with us in some form.

One by one, protestors trickle out. Now we get more pieces of the story.

The cops burst in, with no warning. They pulled drew their guns on
everyone‹including a five year old child who was there with his mother,
forced everyone down on the floor. It was terrifying.

They had a warrant, apparently, from the county, not the city, to search for

bomb making materials. They were searching everyone in the building, then
one by one releasing them as they found nothing.

They continue to find nothing, as we wait through long hours.
Meanwhile,

more and more media arrives. These cops are not as creative as the DC cops
during our first mobilization there against the International Monetary Fund

and the World Bank. Those cops confiscated the lunchtime soup, which
included onions and chili powder, claiming they were materials for home made
pepper spray.

We wait until the last person gets out. He's a twenty year old who the cops
have accused of stealing his own backpack‹but apparently they relented.

And now it's morning. I wake up to the news that cops have been raiding
houses where activists are staying, bursting in with the same bogus warrant
and arresting people, including a four year old child. They've arrested
people at the Food Not Bombs house, a group dedicated to feeding protestors

and the homeless. They've arrested others, presumably just
for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Poor Peoples¹ Campaign, which had set up camp at Harriet Island, a park
in the middle of the Mississippi, has also been harassed, its participants
ordered to disperse and its organizers arrested.

Let me be perfectly clear here: all of us here are planning nonviolent
protests against an administration which is responsible for immense
violence, bombs that have destroyed whole countries, and hundreds of
thousands of deaths.

This is the America that eight years of the Bush administration has brought
us, a place where dissent is no longer tolerated, where pre-emptive strikes
have become the strategy of choice for those who hold power, where any group
can be accused of bombmaking or terrorism on no evidence whatsoever in
order to deter dissent.

Please stand with us. Because it could be your home they are raiding, next.

Call the Mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Tell them you are outraged by

these attacks on dissent. Urge them to let Poor People encamp and to let dissent be heard.

FLOOD THE MAYORS' OFFICES ASAP

St.
Paul Mayor Chris Coleman

651-266-8510

Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak
(612) 673-2100

(612) 673-3000 outside Minneapolis

Starhawk is a lifelong activist in peace and global justice movements, a leader in the feminist and earth-based
spirituality movements, author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing, Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, and her latest, The Earth Path.

Starhawk's website is www.starhawk. org, and more of her writings and information on her schedule and activities can be found there.

John McCain : No Choice for Women

2008-08-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

On this day in 1920, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby ratified the 19th Amendment, finally giving American women the right to vote. After years of organizing, women achieved the right to cast their ballots in full participation in our democracy. On this momentous anniversary, it’s important to recognize the power of women voters, and to make clear the stakes in this year’s Presidential election. If John McCain is elected, he will restrict and roll back women’s rights, and work to prevent our achieving full equality in society.

John McCain Is No Choice for Women. John McCain has an alarming history of disrespecting women and their contributions to society. He’s violently opposed to womens’ reproductive freedom, has voted against women’s access to health care, and has repeatedly opposed women receiving equal pay for equal work. None of us can afford to vote for a person like John McCain, who shows such utter disrespect for women.

John McCain’s attitude towards women’s rights demonstrates that if elected, he will actively promote an anti-women agenda from the White House. Luckily, women have a great advocate in Barack Obama, whose history of support for women’s issues should reassure female voters that the Democratic Party will protect and expand women’s rights.

John McCain Opposes Fair Pay for Women

John McCain’s history of votes in the Senate demonstrates that he thinks sex discrimination in the workplace is just fine. He has repeatedly stated that there is no need to make sure that women are paid the same as their male colleagues for equal work. Barack Obama, on the other hand, was raised by a single, working mother, and a grandmother who worked on the World War II assembly lines, and later rose from the position of secretary to vice president of a bank. Barack Obama respects and wants to equally reward the efforts of hard-working women.

John McCain’s Record on Opposing Fair Pay for Women:

* John McCain opposes fair pay for women. He thinks it is fine for employers to pay women less than men for equal work. In 2008 he refused to vote for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which allows women to receive equal pay for equal qualifications to a man. John McCain said that instead of fair pay for equal work, women need more “education and training.” Source: Huffington Post.

In 1990, John McCain also voted against a bill that would have strengthened civil rights in the workplace and banned discrimination on the base of sex. Source: Senate.gov

Barack Obama’s Record on Supporting Pay Equality for Women:

* Barack Obama voted in favor of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and wants women to earn an equal wage for equal work. He also supports requiring employers to provide seven days of paid sick-leave per year. 40% of women currently have no paid sick days per year. Source: obama.senate.gov

* Barack Obama has a history of supporting fair pay for women. In the Illinois State Senate, he passed a law that helped 330,000 women prevent paycheck discrimination. Source: Real Clear Politics

* Obama’s website states that he “believes the government needs to take steps to better enforce the Equal Pay Act, fight job discrimination, and improve child care options and family medical leave to give women equal footing in the workplace.” Source: BarackObama.com

* Barack Obama wants to invest in women-owned businesses. He supports investing in women-owned businesses and reducing discrimination in business lending against female business owners. Source: BarackObama.com

John McCain : No Choice for Women -part 2

John McCain Makes Offensive and Derogatory Comments About Women
John McCain has a history of making offensive comments about women. He even thinks jokes about rape are funny, and spends time with other men who think the same way. On the other hand, Barack Obama praises the women in his life and credits them with enabling and empowering him to achieve what he is capable of.

John McCain’s History of Derogatory Comments About Women:

* John McCain told the following “joke” on the campaign trail in 1986: “Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’” Source: Tucson Citizen, via JedReport

* At a Republican Senate fundraiser in 1998, McCain told following “joke”: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.” Source: Salon.com

* One of McCain’s fundraisers, Clayton Williams, once told the following “joke” comparing rape to the weather: “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” Source: The Independent

* After returning from Vietnam, John McCain cheated on his wife, Carol, who had been horribly disfigured in an accident. He eventually divorced her and one month later married his second wife, Cindy, the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune. Source: The Daily Mail

* In 1992, when Cindy McCain teased her husband about his thinning hair, he replied, “At least I don’t pile on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” Source: Cliff Schechter, The Real McCain, PoliPoint Press 2008, via Raw Story

Barack Obama’s History of Immense Respect For Women:

* Barack Obama credits the women in his life with making his achievements possible. He states on his website, “My mother, Ann Dunham, was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and what is best in me, I owe to her. My grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, helped raise me, sacrificed again and again for me, and loves me as much as she loves anything in this world. And the mother of my daughters Sasha and Malia - my wife Michelle - is the rock of the Obama family and a woman who continues to make me a better person.” Source: BarackObama.com

* Barack was raised by a single mother who was a teenager when he was born. His mother worked hard to provide Barack with an education and opportunity to succeed. Source: Chicago Tribune

* Barack’s grandmother raised him during his high school years. His grandmother started as a secretary, and worked her way up to vice president of a bank, in an era when women were routinely denied promotions. Source: USA Today

* Barack married a strong working woman, Michelle. Michelle worked as a lawyer, and later a hospital administrator. Michelle says of her husband, “He is incredibly smart, and he is very able to deal with a strong woman, which is one of the reasons why he can be president—because he can deal with me.” Source: ABC News
*

Barack repeatedly praises his wife, Michelle, introducing her at speeches as “my rock.” Source: Newsweek
* Barack’s two school-aged daughters, Malia and Sasha, motivate him to work hard to give all children a brighter future. He wants all of our daughters to have full equality in society, so that “that they’ll be able to dream without limit, achieve without constraint, and be free to seek their own happiness.” Source: National Women’s Law Center, via obama.senate.gov

John McCain Is No Choice for Women.

John McCain has a history of fighting against women’s rights, whether it is their right to receive equal pay for equal work, access to health care, or the ability to make their own reproductive decisions. He will continue this anti-woman agenda in the White House. Women cannot afford another President like George W. Bush, who actively tries to hurt Women’s Equality and Women’s Causes.

Barack Obama has a history of strong support for women’s issues, from our right to choose to our right to reliable medical care. As President he will work to protect these rights and expand women’s equality, not only for his own daughters but for all women in America.

On this anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, we need to remember: women have a choice. This November, our choice is clear: women should vote for the candidate that supports their rights, their issues, and their freedoms. This candidate is Barack Obama.

Iraq: The beginning of the end?

2008-07-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

Three big things happened on Iraq this week. They could mean the beginning of the end of the war.
But since the media have mostly ignored them, I wanted to make sure you saw what's going on.
Here's the scoop:
Iraqis want U.S. Troops out. No one was expecting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to speak up in favor of withdrawal—after all, he's close with the Bush administration. But with elections in Iraq coming up, and a great majority of Iraqis opposed to a prolonged U.S. occupation, Maliki can't afford to toe the Bush line. So he's surprised everyone by standing up this week for a timetable for troop withdrawals and a date certain to end the war. The LA Times headline reads, "Iraqi prime minister advocates withdrawal timeline."1
As a result, the "endless war agreement" Bush has been pushing fell through. Since January, hundreds of thousands of us pushed Congress to stand up to President Bush's proposed treaty with Iraq, which would have tied the next President's hands and made it much harder to get out. This week, the Washington Post reported that that agreement has fallen through—Iraqi leaders are putting their feet down and demanding a much shorter agreement.2
And now even the Pentagon is considering faster timelines. According to reporter Michael Hirsh at Newsweek, "a forthcoming Pentagon-sponsored report" will recommend a big drawdown of troops—suggesting "that U.S. forces be reduced to as few as 50,000 by the spring of 2009, down from about 150,000 now."3
In other words, it's now clear: Most Americans are for a timeline, and so are most Iraqis. And even experts in the Pentagon agree.
For his part, Barack Obama is using these developments to hammer home the point that John McCain and President Bush are now isolated in their resistance to any kind of timeline for withdrawal. He wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times yesterday that reaffirmed his commitment to a timeline that would have all combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months.
It concludes, "Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea. . . [F]or far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender. It's not going to work this time. It's time to end this war."4
It's important that we all work to get the word out about these developments. You can even start by just forwarding this email. Most Americans still don't know that the Iraqis want us out. And that may be the single most important fact to share at this point in time.
I'm always shocked when someone points out that it's been six years since we first started working together to prevent an Iraq war. This week, we're turning a corner in that fight. Bush's permanent war agreement has fallen through. The Iraqi politicians are speaking up. And if we keep working together, we just might see the remaining holdouts in Washington coming around as well.
Thanks for all you do,
–Eli Pariser
PS. Minutes ago, Barack Obama finished making a major speech on Iraq and foreign policy. Here's how he described the Bush-McCain approach:
George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq—they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops "surrender," even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government—not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq's borders. You can read the speech here:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3939&id=13247-7018451-WaT6_ix&t=1
Sources:
1. "Iraqi prime minister advocates withdrawal timetable," Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2008. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3940&id=13247-7018451-WaT6_ix&t=2
2. "U.S., Iraq Scale Down Negotiations Over Forces," Washington Post, July 13, 2008. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3941&id=13247-7018451-WaT6_ix&t=3
3. "Who Says Less Troops?," Newsweek, July 21, 2008. http://www.newsweek.com/id/145848
4. "My Plan for Iraq," Barack Obama, New York Times, July 14, 2008. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3942&id=13247-7018451-WaT6_ix&t=4

Tell Sens. Nelson and Martinez: It's not just a piece of paper

2008-07-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

A blow was struck against our civil liberties this week.
No more bad laws.
Tell Sens. Nelson and Martinez: Never let Bush trample the Constitution again.

On July 9th, sixty-nine senators voted to gut the Bill of Rights. They voted to hand President Bush the power to spy on Americans without warrants, and to grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms who allegedly helped him break the law in the past.
No wonder the Associated Press headline following the bill's passage read, "Senate bows to Bush."
So why does a president with the lowest approval ratings since the advent of polling have the power to eviscerate the Constitution?
Because Sens. Nelson and Martinez gave it to him.
At the signing ceremony in the Rose Garden, President Bush paid "special tribute" (his words) to Democrats like Steny Hoyer, Jay Rockefeller, and Silvestre Reyes for helping to pass the bill.
We can't undo what our senators have done. But we can tell them that we can't believe they'd rather protect President Bush and his law-breaking cronies than the civil liberties of all Americans.
Click here to tell Sens. Nelson and Martinez that you are watching, that you are disappointed, and that you won't sit idly by while our Congress destroys our Constitution.
After you sign the petition, please be sure to tell a few friends.
Michael Kieschnick, President CREDO Mobile from Working Assets

We Need To Keep Making Noise For Impeachment And Not Stop

2008-07-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

Having repeatedly demonstrated their cowardice in every possible respect, is it any surprise that approval ratings for Congress are now less that 10% for the first time ever? And the epitome of that cowardice is their craven dereliction of duty in not holding immediate impeachment hearings for the many war crimes and crimes against the American people of the Cheney/Bush administration. Again, Dennis Kucinich has thrown down the gauntlet, today introducing another article of impeachment, this time wrapping up in one singular package the greatest crime of all, intentionally lying the American people into attacking Iraq. While former White House operatives continue to laugh off congressional subpoenas like the sad joke they have become, Congress is still afraid that people will not vote for them if they stand up for our principles. They need to hear we will not vote for them UNLESS they start standing up for our principles. Impeachment Hearings Now Action Page: http://www.shirleygolub.com/petitions/pnum863.php This action page is being done by Shirley Golub, the first person in 20 years with the courage to challenge Nancy Pelosi in her own Democratic primary. And while she did not win the first time, she got 11% with hardly any news coverage whatsover, and has already helped to inspire other primary challengers out there even now. Yes, Shirley Golub is still out there speaking out and organizing. And we want to encourage her to continue to do so in every way. We got the word that Shirley still has some of those cute orange "On The Table" tote bags. And Shirley will send you one for any donation of any amount. "On The Table" Tote Bags: http://www.shirleygolub.com/donations_tote.php So if you would like a memento of the her ground-breaking campaign, plus a great conversation piece, why don't you pick one up while they are still available. And then when people ask you who Shirley Golub is, you can tell them. Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

Update: FOX smears Obama

2008-07-09T16:32:00.000-07:00

More than 428,000 people signed a petition telling FOX to stop their racist and hate-filled smears against Barack Obama—thanks for signing! If we hit half-a-million signatures, we can draw media attention and put pressure on FOX's advertisers.

Can you help us reach half-a-million by forwarding this email to 5 friends today? They can sign the petition—and watch a new video about FOX's smears—by clicking here:

Sign the petition

Last week, we kicked off a campaign to stop FOX from launching racist and hate-filled smears against Barack and Michelle Obama.

Good news: Over 428,000 people have signed a message protesting FOX. That's unprecedented—thanks for signing! Early next week, our partners at ColorOfChange.org will hold a major event to deliver boxes and boxes of petition signatures to FOX's headquarters.

Other media outlets will be invited to cover this event. If we can deliver half-a-million signatures, this becomes a much more powerful media story. And when that happens, FOX's advertisers will get the hint that it's not a good idea to associate their products with FOX's hate-speech.

Can you help us get to half-a-million signatures by the time of the big delivery next week by forwarding this message to 5 friends today? They can just click here to sign:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/foxsmears.html?rc=sn

The petition reads: "FOX must stop injecting racism, prejudice, and fear into our political dialogue. We intend to hold FOX, its advertisers, and its personalities accountable for FOX's attempts to smear the Obamas."

You can let your friends know that FOX is shameless: In the last several weeks alone, they've "confused" Obama's name with Osama's, referred to Michelle as "Obama's Baby Mama," and called an affectionate fist bump by Barack and Michelle a "terrorist fist jab."¹

This morning, Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films launched a short video called "FOX Attacks: Michelle Obama" showing some of the latest FOX smears on the Obama family. You can see it on our petition page. Greenwald's previous videos documenting FOX's smears on Barack Obama and the black community have been seen millions of times on YouTube.²

If we reach half-a-million signatures, we can generate media coverage that sends a message to FOX that their racist and hate-filled smears go over the line—and put the heat on FOX advertisers as well. Can you help us reach that goal by forwarding this email to 5 friends today? They can just click here to sign the petition:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/foxsmears.html?rc=sn

Thanks for all you do.

–Adam G., Peter, Anna, Justin, and the rest of the team

P.S. Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) has a new book out, and we thought you might be interested. The Nation called Wexler the country's "Most Valuable Congressman," and he's stood with MoveOn on numerous causes, from ending the war to stopping warrantless wiretapping in FISA. Now he's written Fire Breathing Liberal, a fascinating account of life as an outspoken progressive in the House of Representatives. Says comedian Stephen Colbert, "I enjoyed Congressman Wexler's book even more than I enjoy cocaine and prostitutes." You can check it out here:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3906&id=13182-7018451-645wQNx&t=1

You can also sign up for Wexler's email list here:
http://www.wexlerforcongress.com/join.asp

Sources:

1. "Fox News Jokes About Killing Obama," YouTube video posted May 25, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjYpkvcmog0

"Fox News' E.D. Hill teased discussion of Obama dap: "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?" Media Matters, June 6, 2008
http://mediamatters.org/items/200806060007?f=h_clips

"Fox News in trouble again over Obama smear: 'baby mama,'" Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3855&id=13182-7018451-645wQNx&t=2

2. "Fox Attacks: Obama," Brave New Films at FoxAttacks.com, February 2007
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/573-fox-attacks-obama

"Fox Attacks: Black America," Brave New Films at FoxAttacks.com, June 2007
http://foxattacks.com/blog/572-fox-attacks-black-america

"Fox Attacks: Obama, Part 2," Brave New Films at FoxAttacks.com, March 2008
http://foxattacks.com/blog/32376-fox-attacks-obama-part-2

A message from Ramsey Clark: Don't let Bush be the 'decider' any longer

2008-07-02T07:52:00.001-07:00

We will learn from the tragic mistakes of the past, criminal aggressions with tragic human consequences, or President Bush will attack Iran with potentially far more disastrous human consequences.

"I ask you to to resolve to join us and do all you can to create a credible and hopefully irresistible demand for the impeachment of President Bush. To make an urgently needed donation to help build the important work of ImpeachBush in the coming year, click on this link." - Ramsey Clark

Seymour Hersh, who told us of the Ma Lai Massacre some thirty years ago and scores of criminal acts since, reports in the July 7-14 Issue of the New Yorker, that President Bush has enacted a "major escalation of covert operations against Iran for which he "sought up to four hundred million dollars," designed to destabilize Iran's "religious leadership... focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and 'regime change.'"

This is conditioning for the missile attacks on Iran's nuclear site, some going back to the days of the Shah, which both Bush and Cheney passionately espouse.

There are four major reasons impelling Bush and Cheney to take this new military action in the waning months of their disastrous terms of office.

1. Oil. To keep control of Iraqi oil with Exxon, Chevron, and other major western oil companies, a major purpose of their invasion of Iraq, now forced on the Iraqi government they created.

2. Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq. With Iran retaliating, the U.S. military presence and large diplomatic/economic mission in Baghdad will be assorted to protect U.S. interests in Iraq, its oil, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

3. The Presidential Election. The best chance Senator McCain has to win the November elections is a major escalation in the war on terrorism, the terrorist threat becoming the greatest concern of voters in the November elections. Striking against Iran's nuclear sites in September could accomplish this. McCain's grandfather and father, both full Admirals, the first and only father-son to attain that rank, guided McCain to the Naval Academy and military career, backing for Rear Admiral, before political ambition diverted his career track to the rank of Commander-in-Chief. Obama has no military experience.

4. Bush's legacy. Bush is faced with a failed Presidency. He needs for however short a time to appear as the president who prevented a member of the "axis of evil," from obtaining nuclear weapons, as he proclaimed before. His celebration of some agreement with North Korea is designed to avoid recognition of the fact that it acquired and possesses nuclear weapons on his watch - and that leaves Iran alone on the firing line.

The human disaster and effect on the United States may be beyond all we have experienced so far. The way to prevent nuclear arms proliferation is not by threatening and attacking selected nations, but providing leadership and responsibility to carry out the affirmative obligations on existing nuclear powers, according to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This would require the few nations that possess nuclear weapons to systematically and openly destroy them while the many nations that do not possess them to abstain from doing so, accompanied by vigorous international inspections and oversight to assure compliance.

For now, the only sure way to prevent President Bush from attacking Iran is impeachment. He believes he is the 'decider' and has told us his decision. For We, the People, impeachment is our highest for life and the Constitution.

$4 gas for 4 more years?

2008-07-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

People need to know John McCain is not going to help with gas prices or clean energy. On July 9th, at our National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President, we'll tell them right when gas is on their mind: at the pump.

Sign up to host an event now:

Click here

High gas prices have lots of people's blood boiling. But what really makes me angry is $4 gas AND no real progress on alternative energy.

That's what President Bush's leadership has done for us. We need to make sure voters know that John McCain won't be any different. And what better place to communicate that than right at the gas pump?

On July 9th, we are holding a National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President. With local outreach events at gas stations around the country, we'll make sure voters know the facts: John McCain's campaign is run by oil lobbyists,¹ it's funded by oil companies,² his policies are straight out of Big Oil's playbook,³ and he won't solve our energy crisis.

If you're concerned about energy and climate change, will you host a local outreach event in Sebring as part of the Day of Action? Hosting is easy, and we'll help you every step of the way. Start by clicking here:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3854&id=13045-7018451-rzSkLjx&t=3

The Oil-Free President rallies are simple events—people will be holding signs, handing out fliers, and reaching out to the media. Taking the facts right to people at the pump is a powerful way to get the message out: if you want a change in our energy policy, McCain is not for you.

Gas prices have risen to an all-time high—from $1.50 to $4.00 a gallon during Bush's presidency. And the oil industry is making billions on $4.00 gas, while nothing much is being done about oil independence or global warming. Big Oil has made it clear who their candidate is in this race by investing $1 million in John McCain's campaign. And McCain has repaid that friendship by supporting millions of dollars in tax breaks for oil companies⁴ and pushing gimmicks like offshore drilling and gas tax holidays that provide no immediate relief or long-term solutions.

People need to know Barack Obama represents real change on energy.⁵ While Obama is presenting substantive plans for reducing carbon emissions, curbing our dependence on oil, and going after oil speculators, John McCain is selling us snake oil.

With voters desperate for relief, McCain's promises could sound pretty good. We have to make sure our neighbors realize McCain is Big Oil's friend—not ours.

Can you help get that message out by hosting a gas station event for the National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President on July 9th?

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3854&id=13045-7018451-rzSkLjx&t=4

Hosting the events right after Independence Day is also great timing. People will have gas prices on their minds after holiday travel. And it is just the right time to remind everyone the only way we'll make progress on the energy crisis is if we have a president independent of Big Oil influence, who will stand up for us.

Bush Preparing Attack on Iran

2008-07-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

Seymour Hersh has an article in the July 7 New Yorker, "Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran." Hersh was interviewed on Democracy Now and on CNN about his research on the Presidential Finding which last year won George Bush new powers and funding to carry out covert operations, including assassinations of government leaders, inside Iran. Hersh traced some of the intense disagreement within the U.S. military and C.I.A. over Cheney's determination to attack Iran, and the new covert programs being put directly under control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hersh is sounding the alarm, again, that the Bush regime is pusing for a military strike, and that the military campaign has already begun.

World Can't Wait held 3 programs last week on the responsibility of people living in this country to stop such an attack, attended by hundreds of people. Daniel Ellsberg, Everest, and Gareth Porter spoke in Berkeley. Everest and Porter in Los Angeles, and they were joined by Dr. Ervand Abrahamian in New York.

Larry said, "For over 100 years, as I document in my book, controlling the Middle East has been crucial to global predominance. It's a key geopolitical crossroads - and home to 60% of the world's energy, which is key - central energy source - impacts prices and profitability globally - this month the NYT reported "surging oil prices are beginning to cut into the profits of a wide range of American businesses," skyrocketing price of oil illustrates its centrality economically. not to fueling SUVs but to global domination by controlling the world economy and countries who depend on oil. And that's even more crucial NOW. In pursuit of these objectives, the US pumped oceans of oil and spilled rivers of blood - through coups, covert intrigue, military action, and supporting reactionary tyrants..."

We'll put full reports on the events up soon on worldcantwait.org.

Ken Theisen writes on worldcantwait.org today in The Bush Regime Prepares for War on Iran - What Will You Do to Stop It? that "Keeping nukes out of the hands of the Iranian regime is just the cover for any attack on Iran, just as the so-called weapons of mass destruction were the cover used to invade Iran. No matter what the excuse used to justify an attack against Iran, the war is unjust, against the interests of the people of Iran, the U.S., and in fact the entire world, and must be opposed. Such a war could well be even more destructive of human life and social resources than the Iraq war. Millions could die in Iran and the surrounding region. The war could even lead to a nuclear holocaust. Can you live with yourself if you do not do everything possible to prevent this?"

There is a new effort, out of Mayor Bob Kiss's office in Burlington Vermont, which calls on fellow mayors to sign a resolution to avoid military action with Iran. 32 U.S.mayors have signed on. Read more at Mayors Mobilizing Against a War with Iran.

Stay tuned for more events and actions opposing a US attack on Iran, including as part of protests at the Democratic National Convention in Denver August 25-28.

Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

World Can't Wait - info@worldcantwait.org - 866.973.4463 - 305 W. Broadway #185, NY, NY 10013

Cleaning Up After the Worst Presidency in History

2008-07-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

by mcjoan

If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means 'to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal' would bring terrible retribution.
[From dissenting opinion in Olmstead vs. United States, in which the court upheld the use of wiretaps in a case involving an investigation of bootlegging. Brandeis strongly defended the individual right to privacy from government intrusion.]
-Louis D. Brandeis, 1928

That's what Congress is poised to do, "to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal" with passage of the FISA Amendments Act. Except, of course, that they haven't even secured any convictions through the warrantless surveillance, at least not that they've made public--and believe me, if they had any convictions to justify the program, we'd have heard about it.

The Congress is about to severely expand the already too-extensive authority of the president in surveilling the citizens of this nation. In doing so, it is ignoring the fact that the government has become a law breaker and made the telcos accessories to the crimes.

Which brings us to the next words of wisdom from Justice Brandeis:

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.
-Louis D. Brandeis, quoted in Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It (What Publicity Can Do, Ch 5, p. 92) (Frederick A. Stokes Co. ed.)

For the nation to regain any trust in government and respect for the rule of law, we have to know what happened. We need to know what the administration was asking Qwest to do in February of 2001, well before 9/11. We need to know who was targeted in the illegal surveillance program, and we need to know why. "National security" is not an adequate excuse. If it were, the administration and so many in Congress would not be fighting so hard for immunity for the telcos. For one thing, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act already protects private parties who get a certification from the government that their actions are lawful. This provision is utterly unnecessary, unless the information about Americans intercepted, stored, and turned over to the government doesn't fall under the provisions set out in the existing FISA statute.

It's hard to believe that Congress could actually be less curious and more secretive than than the Bush/Cheney administration in trying to keep this information from ever seeing the light of day. Can it really be that they're quaking in their shoes that the Republicans will call them names in the fall so they have no choice but to capitulate? Don't they get that they're going to be attacked anyway, and gutting the Constitution isn't going to be a preventive for that. That seems to be a lesson that they are just not catching on to, despite Democratic wins in 2006 and in special elections this year. If it hasn't occurred to Barack Obama, who's made it as far as securing the nomination for presidency, then I have little hope for the rest of the current crew.

However, there's a tiny glimmer of hope in the fact that not all--and in fact a majority--of Democratic representatives in Congress have opposed retroactive amnesty. Because of that opposition, a real compromise has arisen: Sen. Bingaman has one of the three amendments that will be considered on July 8 when the Senate brings this back up. EFF, who along with the ACLU is representing plaintiffs in these wiretapping cases, has endorsed the amendment:

The Bingaman amendment would prevent Congress from granting immunity in the dark, as described in the press yesterday, by "stay[ing] pending cases against the telecoms and delay[ing] the effective date of any immunity provisions until 90 days after Congress received a report from the inspectors general of the intelligence agencies on the warrantless surveillance program". By placing a temporary hold on immunity and on the litigation until 90 days after the IG Report is submitted to Congress, the simple amendment would give Congress and the American people an opportunity to revisit the issue of telco immunity next year, in light of the audit's findings.

The likelihood of an IG investigation or report by the Bush administration is so minimal as to mean that the decision on immunity would have to happen next year, under a new administration and Congress. It's a good idea. The bad part here is that this amendment has to meet a 60 vote threshold to pass. That threshold is going to be as hard to meet as the simple majority the amnesty stripping amendment will have to achieve. But it does hold out the possibility that these crimes will be examined, and that it can happen with a new president, a new Congress. It's the kind of amendment that could garner support from moderate and conservative Dems and those few moderate Republicans who are really hoping to hold onto their jobs this cycle.

Which is, of course, where we come in.

Again, Justice Brandeis:

The most important political office is that of private citizen.
-Louis D. Brandeis

That means us. Our job here is be the citizens that our elected representatives all too often fail to be. That means holding our representatives, and our nominee, to do their damn job of supporting and defending the Constitution.

One option for fulfilling your duty as a private citizen is Ben Masel's Operation Read the Bill. Print a copy of the bill, find your Senators while they are home during this recess--the 4th of July recess, no less--and ask them if they've done their duty of reading the bill. Ask them if they know that they're about to redefine the term "WMD" to possibly include many weapons that the U.S. military uses. Ask them if they know they are about to cede even more of their power--the power of protecting us, their constituents, from unlawful surveillance--to the executive.

When you're done quizzing them on the bill, ask them to support the Feingold/Dodd amendment to strip immunity from the bill and to support the Bingaman amendment. Ask them to do their job.

Oil Barons Continue to Rape U.S. Economy

2008-06-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

Gasoline prices have reached a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time.

Across the South, Southwest and the upper Great Plains, the combination of low incomes, high gas prices and heavy dependence on pickup trucks and vans is putting especially heavy pressure on family budgets.

Some farm workers are borrowing gas money from their bosses so they can get to work. Some are switching jobs for shorter commutes. People are giving up meat so they can buy fuel, and gasoline theft is rising. Drivers are running out of gas more often, leaving their cars by the side of the road until they can scrape together gas money.

According to Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University, gas prices have doubled across the nation over the last year, but for the rural lower income people -- as a proportion of their income -- the rise in gas is becoming very high, and for some, unmanageable.

On June 16, the U.S. nationwide price for regular unleaded gasoline reached an average of $4.08 – the highest price ever, and about a dollar higher than at the start of 2008. Nationwide, Americans now spend an average of 4 percent of their take-home income on gas. But in some areas people are spending more than 13 percent of their salaries to get around. That means gas expenses are now rivaling what families spend on food and housing.

Who’s Making Money Here?

Gas prices are as high as they are because they can be. I recently talked to an expert in this area and he and many other experts believe that as much as 60 percent of the price of oil is based on pure speculation from investors bidding up oil futures prices.

According to a June 6 article in the New York Times, a barrel of crude oil is now more expensive than it was in 1980, the previous peak, when adjusted for inflation. The oil and gas industry website Rigzone.com states the latest market rate topped $136/bbl as of June 11.

Venezuela estimate earnings of $75 billion in oil revenue in 2008, which is about twice their external debt. Venezuela has the largest energy reserves in the Americas and is the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter. According to officials about 1.4 million barrels are exported to the U.S. daily, but they still have 130 billion barrels in reserve; not exactly what you’d expect when there’s an “oil shortage.”

Likewise, oil companies are notoriously greedy, and the oil companies -- not the people running your local gas station -- have record profits. Exxon made corporate history with $11.7 billion in quarterly profit, as reported by CNN Money.com on February 1, 2008 – a 14 percent increase from the previous year.

They reported both the highest quarterly and annual profits EVER for a U.S. company, boosted in large part by soaring crude oil prices. This even tops their previous record achieved in 2005 after hurricanes destroyed the Gulf Coast.

They also set the annual profit record with net earnings of more than $40.6 billion in 2007. That’s about $1,300 of profit per second.

And that’s just ONE oil company. The number two oil giant, Chevron, reported a profit of more than $17.1 billion for 2007.

Folks, never be fooled into thinking that the oil companies are forced to jack prices up this high because of crude oil costs; they are only benefiting from the run-up in oil prices. But don’t expect gas prices to go down any time soon. $4 a gallon gas is no doubt just the beginning. I see three, potentially interconnected, reasons for the current situation:

Oil giants are trying to make as much profit as possible before the world wizens up and switches to alternative forms of energy, and/or
We’ve reached “peak oil” where the global demand now exceeds global production, which will result in never-ending price hikes as reserves start to dwindle, and
Runaway inflation due to the Federal Reserve’s over-printing of money that isn’t backed by anything of real value

Rising Gas Prices is Just the Beginning of U.S. Financial Woes

Rising oil prices affect so much more than just prices at the pump. Not only are you spending more on commuting, but prices on everything from groceries to tires, household goods and petroleum based personal products are also soaring.

Companies that make goods using raw materials derived from oil are trying to determine how to cope as well, opting between raising prices, shifting their production process to something less costly, or cutting workers. Many are doing all three.

For example, the tire giant Goodyear has raised the prices on its tires by 15 percent in just four months. Procter & Gamble have averaged an increase of 5 percent on its paper products and diapers, and Dow Company has hiked its prices as much as 20 percent across the board, which include wide-ranging products like paint, PC and television screens, mobile phones, light bulbs, paper and carpets.

Meanwhile, incomes are stagnating, and for many, disappearing altogether. Just last month the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics reported a jump in the unemployment rate from 5 percent to 5.5 percent with the loss of 861,000 jobs in the month of May.

Where Do We Go From Here?

We are simply running out of excuses for not converting to safer, renewable energy sources that don’t turn the Earth into a toxic waste dump, and that doesn’t continue to push the population into financial despair.

And there are already many viable alternatives!

Harnessing the energy of the sun, for example, is now becoming a very cost effective alternative for homes and other buildings. The award winning Nanosolar Company has created a breakthrough solar coating, produced at an 80 percent reduced cost from previous years, which makes them a serious contender for consumer dollars.

My new office building, constructed for my practice and web team, will eventually be powered with Nanosolar electricity , and it seems obvious to me that this technology will allow us to not only radically lower our utility bills in the coming future, but do it without polluting our environment.

Think about it: there is enough energy in the sunshine that falls on the earth in ONE HOUR to satisfy the energy needs of the entire human race for ONE YEAR. There’s simply no need for this over-reliance on oil that is now decimating the earth and financially destroying so many people’s lives.

I’ve also posted previous articles written by Darshan Goswami, retired from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture where he headed the Department of Load Forecasting and Renewable Energy. Darshan Goswami brings up many good points and explains the viability of switching from a “Hydrocarbon Economy” to a “Hydrogen Economy,” thereby eliminating our reliance on foreign oil completely.

He believes that a Hydrogen Economy would eliminate many of the problems that the hydrocarbon technology has created, and offer advantages such as:

The elimination of pollution caused by fossil fuels - When hydrogen is used in a fuel cell to create power, it is a completely clean technology. The only byproduct is water. There are also no environmental dangers like oil spills to worry about with hydrogen.
The elimination of greenhouse gases - If the hydrogen comes from the electrolysis of water, then hydrogen adds no greenhouse gases to the environment. There is a perfect cycle -- electrolysis produces hydrogen from water, and the hydrogen recombines with oxygen to create water and power in a fuel cell.
The elimination of economic dependence - The elimination of oil means no dependence on the Middle East and its oil reserves.
Distributed production - Hydrogen can be produced anywhere that you have electricity and water. People can even produce it in their homes with relatively simple technology.
Generate new employment - This new Hydrogen Economy will create a very positive impact on the world economy.

For more information about the use of hydrogen, I recommend reading Darshan Goswami’s articles listed below.

What Can You Do Personally?

On a personal level, you can reduce your own need for oil by carpooling to work, turning off your lights and keeping your air conditioner use to a minimum. You can also bypass the rising food transportation costs by buying mostly locally grown food and even planting some of your own.

For the times when you do have to drive, you can actually increase your gas mileage by 37 percent just by braking easier and slowing down. Some people are even taking fuel economy to a whole new level simply by skillfully changing the way they drive.

One group known as hypermilers, use tips like coasting to stop lights, using cruise control, and avoiding full stops as much as possible to save gas … and some of them boast getting up to 90 mpg. Something worth looking into!

Fight FOX on Facebook

2008-06-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Click here to tell FOX:

"FOX must stop injecting racism, prejudice, and fear into our political dialogue. We intend to hold FOX, its advertisers, and its personalities accountable for FOX's attempts to smear the Obamas."

Sign the petition

Right now, FOX is trying to paint Barack Obama as foreign, un-American, suspicious, and scary. They're trying to send Americans the message that our country's first viable black candidate for President is not "one of us."

We've seen this before from FOX. They won't stop until it becomes too painful to continue—until the public calls them out and advertisers start getting worried.

Now is the time to draw a line in the sand by putting FOX on notice that their behavior won't be tolerated. Over 100,000 Americans have already expressed their outrage. Can you make that number even bigger by adding your name to this message?

"FOX must stop injecting racism, prejudice, and fear into our political dialogue. We intend to hold FOX, its advertisers, and its personalities accountable for FOX's attempts to smear the Obamas."

Clicking here will sign the petition:

http://pol.moveon.org/stopthesmears/o.pl?id=13026-7018451-xJrwqZx&t=6

FOX's longtime pattern of smearing Obama and the black community is well documented.¹ But the outrageous moments have increased in the last month.

First, a paid FOX commentator accidentally confused "Obama" with "Osama" and then joked on the air about killing Obama.² Next, a FOX anchor said a playful fist bump by Barack and Michelle Obama could be a "terrorist fist jab."³ And then, FOX called Michelle Obama "Obama's baby mama"—slang for an unmarried mother of a man's child, and a clear attempt to associate the Obamas with negative stereotypes about black people.⁴

If you know others who'd find FOX's recent actions despicable, please ask them to sign the petition too. The more people who sign, the bigger our impact will be.

Our friends at ColorOfChange.org—an online advocacy group focused on the issues of importance to the black community—are leading this charge. They will deliver thousands of petition signatures as a group to FOX's headquarters (in front of other media cameras, so FOX feels more heat). Here's how they describe the situation:

After each of the incidents mentioned [above], FOX issued some form of weak apology. But what does it mean when you slap someone in the face, apologize the next day, then slap them again? It means the apology is meaningless.

Now is the time to call out FOX for these attacks and their fake apologies. The first stop is FOX. Next will be their advertisers and the FCC. If we don't push back now, we will see more of the same from now until November. Please join us to demand that FOX answer for its behavior:

Add your name to this important cause by clicking here—then tell your friends:

http://pol.moveon.org/stopthesmears/o.pl?id=13026-7018451-xJrwqZx&t=7

Thanks for all you do.

–Adam G., Peter, Anna, Justin, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Fox Attacks Obama." Brave New Films at FoxAttacks.com, February 2007
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/573-fox-attacks-obama

"Fox Attacks: Black America," Brave New Films at FoxAttacks.com, June 2007
http://foxattacks.com/blog/572-fox-attacks-black-america

"Fox Attacks: Obama, Part 2," Brave New Films at FoxAttacks.com, March 2008
http://foxattacks.com/blog/32376-fox-attacks-obama-part-2

2. "Fox News Jokes About Killing Obama," YouTube video posted May 25, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjYpkvcmog0

3. "Fox News' E.D. Hill teased discussion of Obama dap: "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?" Media Matters, June 6, 2008
http://mediamatters.org/items/200806060007?f=h_clips

4. "Fox News in trouble again over Obama smear: 'baby mama'" Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3855&id=13026-7018451-xJrwqZx&t=8

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 3.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

take the fight to the GOP

2008-06-30T12:58:00.001-07:00

The cynics can't wait for November because they think they can tell you the old rules still apply -- that no matter what Barack Obama says, no matter what Howard Dean fights for with his 50 state strategy, there really are red states where Democrats can't win.

To really change our government, we need to take the fight to states we haven't contested before. The GOP is reeling; this is the time to push hard and clean the slate.

Click on the button below to contribute to some great Democrats and work for a government in DC that reflects our values.

Show the cynics they're dead wrong and turn these red states blue by electing Democratic Senators.

These are once in a lifetime races - incredible Democratic candidates in red states where voters are ready to punish the Roadblock Republicans for record gas prices, our planet in peril, our foreign policy in shambles, government corruption, corporate abuse and an economy that's unfair.

Elect these candidates and we get to 60 Democrats in the Senate -- and bury the politics of Bush, Cheney, Rove, and McCain and make a fresh start for our country.

So let's expand the map and play offense. It's time we go deep into Republican territory and aim for some Senate seats in states that Washington purveyors of conventional wisdom thought we wouldn't contest.

Follow this link to take the fight to them:

http://www.actblue.com/page/expandthemap

You know who I want to take on? The chief of the Roadblock Republicans himself, the Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in red-state Kentucky. Bruce Lunsford, a veteran of the Army Reserves, is running a strong race for universal access to affordable health care and a new course in Iraq, two of the many things Mitch McConnell has been instrumental in blocking progress on as Minority Leader. Defeating Senator McConnell would send the strongest message possible that we are done with the Republican policies and want a new direction.

Even deeper in the South in North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole has a big battle on her hands from Democrat Kay Hagan. Kay Hagan, a State Senator in North Carolina, was part of the effort to push North Carolina into a leadership role on using renewable energy sources, and she would fight to restore some fiscal sanity to Washington. With an energized Democratic Party in North Carolina, we can turn this seat and maybe even win this state for Barack Obama.

Colorado was a state that just a few years ago, everyone thought was turning red, but we have a chance, with Mark Udall, to turn it blue and set up a Mountain West base for the Democratic Party. Mark's been a great environmentalist in the House, and I know we can count on him as Senator to help us tackle the incredibly difficult challenge of energy and climate change.

And, in a state where no one thought a Democratic victory was possible, there's real hope for the candidacy of Scott Kleeb in Nebraska. Scott's a fourth-generation Nebraskan who nearly won an election in 2006 in one of the most conservative districts in the country, and he ran as a proud progressive. He's running against a Bush Administration Cabinet Member, trying to help stamp out Bush Republicanism in the heartland.

We can win these races and profoundly change the political course of our country, but only if you help. To win in these red areas, we need help from across the country. We need to work twice as hard to win here, but we can do it.

So please do what you can to help:

http://www.actblue.com/page/expandthemap

Let's keep on working to changing our country.

Thanks,
John Kerry

Ladies & Gentlemen, Meet John Mccain

2008-06-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

by DarkSyde

Tue Jun 17, 2008 at 06:34:53 PM PDT

As progressives, we don't want to judge a possible President solely by their personal marital history. All's fair in love and war, right? But the McCain campaign has made a big issue out of McCain's past in the military, in contrast and independent from George Bush, and GOP 'family values.' On the latter, it's therefore fair to point out that McCain in his mid-forties dumped his first wife -- after she was crippled in a disfiguring car wreck -- for a 26 year-old blond beauty queen 18 years younger and former college cheerleader who just happened to be an heiress to a vast family fortune.

But the real metric for any candidate is their public record. So, what does McCain's voting record and public statements suggest about his views on women and children? Here's just a few recent instances:

John McCain has a long, long record of supporting abstinence only as opposed to modern family planning methods. He reportedly even opposed making abstinence only programs medically accurate and scientifically based.

John McCain voted against requiring healthcare insurance providers to cover birth control and hormone replacement therapy.

In August of 2007, John McCain voted against reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program for five years and called Bush's subsequent veto of the measure the 'right call.'

While we're on that one, John McCain repeatedly voted to cut or end various childrens' healthcare programs, and in 2005 in a truly depraved act he chose tax cuts for billionaires over the healthcare of children.

Just this year John McCain said he opposed a Senate bill that would secure equal pay for women and didn't even bother to cast a vote on it. The bill was killed by Senate Republicans.

Out of fairness it should be noted, as unimpressive as McCain is on these issues, powerful elements in the party he represents are straight out of the Dark Ages. McCain fundraiser Clayton Williams joked that women should just sit back and enjoy being raped if it was inevitable. Right-wing pundit Rush Limbaugh remarked that advocates for women's rights were motivated 'to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.' Conservative dominionist Pat Robertsion has reportedly stated that groups working for womens' rights "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

With all the wing-nuttery, it's no surprise that McCain trails his democratic rival by double digits among women voters. But given the GOP's absymal track record and McCain's good old boy, caviliar attitude to the majority of the electorate, one has to wonder why any woman would consider voting for a Republican for any office, let alone President. Maybe it's because a lot of ladies just haven't met the real John McCain, at least not yet.

Oh, and gentlemen? Lest you think I forget you swing'n bachelors and roaming married men: the last time the only way to prevent unwanted pregancies really was abstinence only, there was no such thing as court mandated child support based on reliable genetic paternity testing. Capiche, daddios?

Democratic presidents mean better wages

2008-06-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

By Robyn E. Blumner, Times Columnist

During Hillary Clinton's gracious concession speech she mentioned that during the 40 years that she's been involved in politics and public life the country has voted 10 times for president, with a Democrat winning the seat only three times.

"Just think how much more progress we could have made over the past 40 years," Clinton said, "if we had a Democratic president."

From the perspective of protecting the environment, expanding access to health care, promoting a progressive energy policy and even fiscal responsibility, I agree with this statement. But it was interesting to read an analysis by Larry Bartels, a professor of politics at Princeton, bearing this out in hard numbers for the daily-grind worker.

Bartels found that the real incomes of middle-class families grew more than twice as fast when Democrats were in the White House than when a Republican was president. And for the working poor, their real incomes grew six times as fast under a Democratic president.

In his analysis of six decades of available economic data, Bartels allowed one year for the economic policies of each president to get in gear. He said that the only group for whom partisan politics had little impact was the affluent. Their fortunes grew healthily regardless of party in power.

Bartels, who wrote Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, found that income would be more equal today than in the 1950s had our national prosperity been shared under Republican presidents as it was under Democrats. Instead, our nation is increasingly one of haves and have-nots, mired in income inequality more severe than at any time since the days of robber barons.

This is no surprise in light of the parties' differing views of workers and their rights. One dependable way for employees at the lower end of the income scale to demand a piece of increased productivity and profits is through joining unions or threatening to do so. Democrats traditionally are supportive of this while Republicans are generally hostile.

While it is true that regardless of who has resided in the White House, rates of unionization have markedly declined over the last 40 years, it is also true that helping unions and workers succeed is a central tenet of the Democratic Party.

Contrast that with the administration of President Bush, who has unleashed government to hobble unions and their organizing efforts. In just one illuminating example, Bush's 2009 budget request seeks 100 times more money to regulate unions than to ensure that employers follow wage and hour laws and other labor protections. In dollars per regulated entity, Bush has budgeted $2,500 per union and union local and only $26 per employer, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Republican antipathy toward labor was also reflected in the lopsided vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, a measure that would help to neutralize the union-busting tactics of employers. In 2007, it passed the House with nearly every Democrat voting for it and 183 Republicans against, and died in the Senate due to Republican opposition.

Yet, a new report by John Schmitt, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, finds that unionization would bring a double-digit pay premium to at least 60 percent of America's workforce. Looking at national data for the years 2003 to 2007, the study concludes that unionization raises the income of the typical low-wage worker by 20.6 percent, and that of the median-wage worker by 13.7 percent.

The next election is momentous for the future of our nation in more ways than can be listed. But I believe it will seal the fate of the American worker. A Democrat in the White House is a vital step toward making us a fair country again, countering what we have become: a nation with a small cadre of investor-class winners and a vast population of struggling wage earners, with little ground left to lose.

The Company You Keep

2008-06-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

by mcjoan

Sat Jun 14, 2008 at 11:04:59 AM PDT

John McCain just cancelled a fundraiser set for Monday with a Texas contributor, who has already raised $300,000 for his campaign. Seems the fundraiser, oilman and former gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, has a rather infamous political history:

Clayton Williams stirred controversy during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas with a botched attempt at humor in which he compared rape to weather. Within earshot of a reporter, Williams said: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

I don't know what passes for humor, botched or otherwise, at ABC News, but rape jokes ain't it. It's far beyond sexist. It's despicable and bordering on sociopathic.

As for Williams and McCain, I wholeheartedly concur with Tracy:

It’s not enough that Senator McCain cancels an event because the media got wind of it.

It’s not enough.

Senator McCain should publicly reject and denounce this man.

He should donate every single dirty dollar that this man has raised for him - all $300,000 - to an organization working to combat rape in our society - like RAINN or RVA.

And he should apologize immediately and completely to his female supporters for daring to entertain the thought of keeping company with this despicable, disgusting individual.

McCain's FISA Flip-Flops Still in the News

2008-06-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

by mcjoan

Sat Jun 14, 2008 at 10:09:59 AM PDT

Once again, you've got to wonder about the political acumen of Democratic leaders who are so willing to capitulate on an issue that is working against the Republican nominee for President. Here's the Philadelphia Inquirer on John McCain:

Listen. What you are about to hear is the sound of John McCain flip-flopping his position on one of America's most cherished ideals.

A top McCain advisor says the Republican presidential candidate agrees with President Bush's outrageous program of wiretapping Americans' overseas conversations without warrants.

McCain previously had been critical of the Bush administration's unilateral decision, following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to let the National Security Agency eavesdrop on untold numbers of citizens.

Before, McCain talked of the need for presidents to obey the law, just as other Americans must do.

But now he suggests that a McCain White House would pursue the same unchecked spy powers as Bush.

His flip-flop isn't as significant as the fact that McCain has gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick.

It's bad enough to think that the Dems would be willing to reward the Bush/Cheney administration for its subversion of the Constitution. But they have apparently so lost their ability to recognize a win that they'll give McCain the gift of not having to continue to tie himself up in knots on this issue. Go figure.

McCain Proves Himself Utterly Tasteless

2008-06-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

by brownsox

Sat Jun 14, 2008 at 09:14:59 AM PDT

If you were watching MSNBC's coverage of Tim Russert's untimely passing last night, you may just have witnessed John McCain's naked attempt to make the death of this institution all about himself.

Apparently, McCain thought the time was right to make self-aggrandizing jokes about Russert's technique:

When asked yesterday by reporters what it was like to be interviewed by Russert, McCain said with a smile, ``I once told him I haven't had so much fun since my last interrogation at prison camp.''

Good God.

McCain's ravenous eagerness to reference his time as a POW at every opportunity is well documented, of course. It can be said of McCain that he comes from the Giuliani school of campaigning: each statement is a noun, a verb and Hanoi.

But I never thought the Senator would be quite so tasteless as to compare being on Meet the Press to facing interrogation in a prison camp...while eulogizing a Washington icon just hours after he passed, at a time when the nation was still in shock, still in mourning for one of its most prominent journalists.

I understand that John McCain was making a joke. I really do understand that. And I would posit that it's frankly shocking that he would use this occasion to crack wise. If Tim Russert were being roasted at a dinner, or receiving an award, it would be perfectly appropriate (well, almost appropriate) for McCain to have made this comment.

But Russert just died.

And McCain is busy with self-promotion at Russert's expense before the autopsy is done, using a joke he has used dozens of times before in a highly cavalier fashion.

McCain will use his military experience as a punchline. He has used the line, "I haven’t had his much fun since I was in Hanoi" on a number of occasions. Even more, after watching the Arizona Diamondbacks lose a game to the New York Yankees in the World Series he said, "I hadn’t had so much fun since my last interrogation in Hanoi."

Apparently, this national occasion of mourning deserves the same level of consideration as a baseball game.

Senator McCain, for once in the year, this is not about you. You are the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States, and I understand that for most days out of the year, every interview and every speech you give will be about you.

But yesterday was about eulogizing Tim Russert, and this self-promoting reference is truly egregious and supremely tasteless.

Tim Russert deserves better at your hands.

Yesterday's vote on impeachment, and the next steps

2008-06-12T14:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's vote and today's steps forward
Download and print the new ImpeachBush flyer

Today's update on the status of impeachment in Congress also includes a new resource for impeachment activists to use around the country. We also want to send a thank you! to all those who have made a donation to allow the movement to reach this incredible level of activity. Funds are critical at this stage, click here to donate.

Download this flyer by clicking here.

Yesterday, the House voted 251-166 to send the 35 Articles of Impeachment introduced on Monday to the House Judiciary Committee.

ImpeachBush.org is initiating a full-scale grassroots campaign to pressure the House Judiciary Committee to act on HRes 1258, the Articles of Impeachment for George W. Bush. It is now the Judiciary Committee's obligation to hold impeachment hearings.

We've produced a new flyer, "Impeachment: How you can help make it a reality," which you can download by clicking here. It is perfect for circulating to your friends, family members, classmates, co-workers, community members, and all other potential newcomers to the movement. If everyone on this list were to pass out the flyer to just ten people -- and that wouldn't take long at all -- we could magnify our efforts dramatically.

By bringing the millions more people who already support impeachment into the movement, through phone calls, emails, door-to-door outreach, rallies, pickets and advertising, Congress be forced to respond to the will of the people.

We'd especially like to thank everyone who has donated to the impeachment movement in the last few days. It's your help that allows us to get these grassroots initiatives off the ground and running in no time. If you have not donated this week, please consider taking a moment to do so right now and click this link. If you have already given, we thank you for any additional contribution you can make.

-- All of us at ImpeachBush.org

P.S. The 35 Articles of Impeachment of HR 1258 are available for viewing on the ImpeachBush.org website.

Kucinich’s Impeachment Measure Gains Co-Sponsor, But Pelosi Believes It's a 'Distraction'

2008-06-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

By Jason Leopold
The Public Record
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

U.S. Rep Robert Wexler, (D-Fla.), said Tuesday he will co-sponsor a resolution introduced Monday night by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush for lying to Congress and the public to win support for an invasion of Iraq five years ago.

"President Bush deliberately created a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people and the charges detailed in this impeachment resolution indicate an unprecedented abuse of executive power," Wexler said in a prepared statement. "A decision by Congress to pursue impeachment is not an option, it is a sworn duty. It is time for Congress to stand up and defend the Constitution against the blatant violations and illegalities of this Administration. Our Founding Fathers bestowed upon Congress the power of impeachment, and it is now time that we use it to defend the rule of law from this corrupt Administration."

Wexler co-sponsored a separate resolution Kucinich introduced last year that called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. When the House Judiciary Committee refused to take up the measure Wexler launched a campaign to drum up support for impeachment hearings against Cheney.

In a statement Tuesday, Kucinich said, "It is imperative that members of Congress have a thorough opportunity to read the articles of impeachment and study the documentation," Kucinich said in a statement. "When they do, I am confident that they will agree that it is both appropriate and necessary for the Judiciary Committee to begin hearings."

Steny Hoyer, the Democratic House Majority Leader, told reporters Tuesday that the 35 articles of impeachment Kucinich read to his colleagues over a four-hour period will be read again into the Congressional Record Tuesday evening by the House clerk.

Kucinich will then "rise and make a motion that the Impeachment Resolution be referred to committee,” a news release issued by the Congressman's office said.

Hoyer defended Kucinich's move to bring the impeachment articles before the House.

“This Administration has had one of the worst records domestically and internationally of any Administration in my lifetime, maybe ever,” Hoyer, who has been opposed to impeachment, told reporters Tuesday.

However, the resolution, which is expected to be sent to the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday where it will likely be shelved, does not have the support of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The California Democrat has said repeatedly that impeachment is "off the table."

"Speaker Pelosi will continue to lead legislative efforts to find a new direction in Iraq but believes that impeachment would create a divisive battle, be a distraction from Congress's efforts to chart a new course for America's working families and would ultimately fail," Pelosi's spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer Tuesday.

Congress has not considered impeachment because the Democratic leadership believes it will hurt their party's chances of securing the White House in November's hotly contested presidential election between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. Additionally, Democrats said they do not have enough votes to support a move to impeach the president.

Democrats would consider initiating impeachment proceedings if the president authorizes a military strike against Iran without first consulting Congress, according to a May 8 letter sent to President Bush by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers.

"Late last year, Senator Joseph Biden stated unequivocally that “the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran, and if he does, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, I will move to impeach” the president.

"We agree with Senator Biden, and it is our view that if you do not obtain the constitutionally required congressional authorization before launching preemptive military strikes against Iran or any other nation, impeachment proceedings should be pursued, Conyers' letter says.

Kucinich said Monday night as he read the articles of impeachment on the House floor that President Bush misled "the American people and members of Congress to believe Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction so as to manufacture a false case for war."

"President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office," Kucinich said. "In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and to the best of his ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed the following abuses of power..."

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence agreed. Last week, the committee released a long-awaited report on prewar Iraq intelligence that concluded President Bush and Vice President Cheney knowingly lied to the public and to Congress about Iraq's links to al-Qaeda and the threat the country posed to the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11.

That would be an impeachable offense, according to former Nixon counsel John Dean.

"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked," Dean wrote in a June 6, 2003 column for findlaw.com.

"Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.

Moreover, the move to impeach President Bush comes on the heels of a letter signed by 56 House Democrats Friday that was sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey calling for the appointment a special counsel to investigate whether President Bush and other White House officials violated the War Crimes Act when they authorized brutal interrogation methods against detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.

The letter says the International Committee of the Red Cross conducted an independent investigation of interrogation practices at Guantanamo Bay and “documented several instances of acts of torture against detainees, including soaking a prisoner’s hand in alcohol and lighting it on fire, subjecting a prisoner to sexual abuse and forcing a prisoner to eat a baseball.”

"This information indicates that the Bush administration may have systematically implemented, from the top down, detainee interrogation policies that constitute torture or otherwise violate the law," the letter to Mukasey says. “We believe that these serious and significant revelations warrant an immediate investigation to determine whether actions taken by the President, his Cabinet, and other Administration officials are in violation of the War Crimes Act, the Anti-Torture Act, and other U.S. and international laws.”

FEMA gives away $85 million of supplies for Katrina victims

2008-06-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

From Abbie Boudreau and Scott Zamost
CNN Special Investigations Unit

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- FEMA gave away about $85 million in household goods meant for Hurricane Katrina victims, a CNN investigation has found.

These items, stored by FEMA, were meant for Katrina victims but were given to state and federal agencies.

1 of 3

The material -- from basic kitchen goods to sleeping necessities -- sat in warehouses for two years before the Federal Emergency Management Agency's giveaway to federal and state agencies this year.

James McIntyre, FEMA's acting press secretary, told CNN that FEMA was spending more than $1 million a year to store the material and that another agency wanted the warehouses torn down, so "we needed to vacate them."

"Upon review of our assets and our need to continue to store them, we determined that they were excess to FEMA's needs; therefore, they are being excessed from FEMA's inventory," McIntyre wrote in an e-mail.

He declined a request for an on-camera interview, telling CNN the giveaway was "not news."

Photos from one of the facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, show pallet after pallet of cots, cleansers, first-aid kits, coffee makers, camp stoves and other items stacked to the ceiling. Watch dismay over "out of touch" FEMA »

FEMA said some of the items were donations from companies after Katrina, but most were purchased in the field as "starter kits" for people living in trailers provided by the agency. And even though the stocks were offered to state agencies after FEMA decided to get rid of them, one of the states that passed was Louisiana.

Martha Kegel, the head of a New Orleans nonprofit agency that helps find homes for those still displaced by the storm, said she was shocked to learn about the existence of the goods and the government giveaway.

"These are exactly the items that we are desperately seeking donations of right now -- basic kitchen household supplies," said Kegel, executive director of Unity of Greater New Orleans. "These are the very things that we are seeking right now. FEMA, in fact, refers homeless clients to us to house them. How can we house them if we don't have basic supplies?" Watch the great FEMA giveaway »

Kegel's group works with FEMA and other local organizations to rehouse victims of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that flooded New Orleans and killed more than 1,800 people along the Gulf Coast. Community groups say thousands of people are still living in abandoned buildings in the city, though fewer than 100 people remain housed in tents.

Kegel said FEMA was told in regular meetings that Unity was desperate for household supplies and that the group has been forced to beg for donations. But she said FEMA never told Unity and other community groups that it had tens of millions of dollars worth of brand-new items meant for storm victims.

She said she learned of it from CNN, which found that those items never made it to people such as Debra Reed.

"An honest person like me didn't get nothing," said Reed, 54, who recently moved from a tent beneath a New Orleans bridge to a home with the help of Kegel's group. "I'm gonna turn, 'cause I'm gonna cry. I didn't get nothing. I fought to get my money, but they wouldn't give it to me. So I ended up going under the bridge."

FEMA confirmed it had kept the merchandise in storage for the past two years -- then gave it away to cities, schools, fire departments and nonprofit agencies such as food banks. In all, General Services Administration records show FEMA gave away 121 truckloads of material.

McIntyre said that most of the items given away were not "standard-issue type supplies" that FEMA would have distributed after other disasters. He said using the GSA, which manages federal property, to get rid of those stockpiles was "standard process."

Asked if FEMA believed Katrina victims no longer needed the items, McIntyre wrote: "If the state did not request the supplies, then FEMA would not know." Watch Kegel describe "the needs are just overwhelming" »

Pallets at the Fort Worth warehouse were piled high with boxes of buckets, boots, cleansers, mops and brooms. There were stacks of tents, lanterns and camp stoves for people still displaced, as well as clothing, bedding, plates and utensils.

Meanwhile, Kegel said, Unity's clients can take only "one fork, one spoon, one knife -- they can only take one plate. We don't have enough to go around."

But FEMA said the items were no longer needed in the stricken region. So it declared them "federal surplus" and gave them away.

Federal agencies such as the Bureau of Prisons, Postal Service and Border Patrol got first dibs on the material when FEMA started giving it away. Other agencies that received items include the National Guard, U.S. Marshals Service, the Air Force and Navy and the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, according to a list the GSA provided to CNN.

These items also were offered to all states -- yet Louisiana, where most of the people displaced by the storm live, passed on taking any of them.

John Medica, director of the Louisiana Federal Property Assistance Agency in Baton Rouge, said he was unaware that Katrina victims still had a need for the household supplies.

"We didn't have anybody out there who told us they wanted it," Medica said.

Instead, 16 other states took the free items.

Kegel said she could not understand how Medica could not be aware of the need in the New Orleans area.

She said she had not heard of the agency and was not registered with them, but following CNN's interview, the agency contacted her about registering Unity of Greater New Orleans so it could qualify for available supplies in the future.

McCain: Bringing the troops home is "not too important"

2008-06-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

by BarbinMD

Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 08:35:18 AM PDT

Yes, he really said that. Via Talking Points Memo:

There have been 10 American soldiers killed in Iraq during the first 10 days of this month, 189 killed this year, and 4,094 killed over the past five years, but bringing the troops home "isn't too important" because we've got troops stationed in Germany and South Korea and no one is killing them?

This is what John McCain is "fine" with for another 100 years.

House votes on impeachment today!

2008-06-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

House Votes on Impeachment Today!

Three important updates

ImpeachBush will be delivering you action alerts and updates on the impeachment struggle in Congress. Today, we have three things to report, but first we want to send a thank you! to all those who have made a donation to allow the movement to go into high gear. Funds are critical at this stage, click here to donate.

Update:

1) House members are expected to vote Wednesday (today) on sending articles of impeachment against President Bush to the Judiciary Committee. The 35 articles introduced by Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, on Monday are pressuring the Democratic Party to make good on a promise many of them made before the 2006 elections: to impeach! Just one week ago, ImpeachBush.org members flooded Judiciary Chairman John Conyers offices with the demand for impeachment during the National Call-In Day for Impeachment. We must continue to let Rep. Conyers and every other Congressperson know that the people demand action!

2) Calling it "a sworn duty" of Congress to act, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida signed on yesterday to Dennis Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment. "President Bush deliberately created a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people and the charges detailed in this impeachment resolution indicate an unprecedented abuse of executive power," Wexler said in a statement.

3) At 1pm, June 11, members of Veterans for Peace will hold a news conference at the Capitol to display the 22,000 names they collected on a petition to impeach Bush, which they will deliver to the office of John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. VFP Vice-President Elliott Adams wrote, "Having taken an oath to defend the Constitution 'from all enemies foreign and domestic,' our members take the obligation to impeach George W. Bush most seriously. We must hold this administration accountable for waging a war of aggression against Iraq."

What we are doing

We are going into overdrive with volunteers in DC and around the country putting pressure on Congress to act on impeachment now. We are also doing massive outreach to bring more and more people into the impeachment movement at this critical moment. We are printing thousands of leaflets, organizing door-to-door outreach for volunteers, phone banking, and exploring the possibilities for internet advertising and more newspaper ads. What we can achieve depends on the level of financial support provided by those who believe that the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is necessary. Click this link to make your donation.

Breaking News: Articles of Impeachment Being Introduced in Congress Right Now

2008-06-10T05:32:00.000-07:00

Breaking News:
Articles of Impeachment Being Introduced in Congress Right Now

Make a donation

Please take a brief moment right now to donate to support the impeachment effort - together we can make impeachment a reality.

Right now, Monday night, Rep. Dennis Kucinich is on the floor of the House of Representatives introducing articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. He is presenting a 35 count indictment which is being broadcast on C-Span. We will provide a more detailed update, but wanted to be sure to let everyone know right away.

The intense work of the ImpeachBush.org/VoteToImpeach membership is forcing impeachment on the table. During ImpeachBush.org's National Call In Day for Impeachment held just one week ago, the offices of Rep. John Conyers were flooded with calls demanding impeachment. We have received reports that there were more calls than could even be answered.

Your work and perseverance is making the difference!

Please take a brief moment right now to donate to support the impeachment effort - together we can make impeachment a reality.

-- All of us at ImpeachBush.org/VoteToImpeach

White House Lied About Abramoff Contacts

2008-06-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

by SusanG

Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 02:30:12 PM PDT

Here's what the White House today is calling warmed up leftovers and "a joke":

President Met Disgraced Lobbyist At Least Six Times

The White House Had Previously Acknowledged Only Two Meetings

By JUSTIN ROOD

June 9, 2008 —

The White House had stronger ties to disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff than it has publicly admitted, according to a draft congressional report released Monday.

President Bush met Abramoff on at least four occasions the White House has yet to acknowledge, according to the draft report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

And White House officials appeared as comfortable going to Abramoff and his lobbyists seeking tickets to sporting and entertainment events, as they did seeking input on personnel picks for plum jobs, the report found.

President Bush himself met Abramoff on at least six occasions, the report said, citing White House documents; the White House had previously acknowledged only two.

Yep. The president lying about contacts with a criminal is just a freakin' hilarious "joke," isn't it?

And it would be irresponsible not to begin speculation about the following tidbit, wouldn't it?

At least three former officials declined to answer some or all of the investigators' questions, citing their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the draft report said.

Bush administration destroying more evidence from interrogations

2008-06-09T15:19:00.000-07:00

by smintheus

Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 01:37:41 PM PDT

The White House likes to pretend that it has not created a kafkaesque spiderweb of prisons and military tribunals, despite all the evidence to the contrary: kidnapping, the purchase of prisoners for "bounties", torture and abuse, coerced confessions, locking up known innocents for years at a time, secrecy and lies, destruction of evidence, poor access for lawyers and human rights watchdogs, prolonged imprisonment without trial, a series of kangaroo-court procedures, reprisals against military lawyers who uphold standards of justice, and the flagrant politicization of trials. Well, add another stone to the mountain of evidence against this "administration".

A Gitmo defense lawyer stumbled upon a Pentagon manual that advises interrogators to destroy their hand-written notes in order to thwart any inquiries at trial into wrong-doing by officials.

Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay were told to destroy their notes to stop them potentially being used to highlight the mistreatment of detainees, according to a US military lawyer.

William Kuebler, a lieutenant commander who is defending Omar Khadr, a Canadian national facing trial for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, said the classified instructions were included in an operations manual that prosecutors allowed him to see last week...

He told reporters the instruction was contained in a US military manual of standard operating procedures, or SOPs, for interrogators that was shown to him during a pre-trial review of possible evidence.

The mission has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify ... Keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimize certain legal issues," the document was cited as saying in an affidavit signed by Kuebler...

Kuebler said the operations manual, from January 2003, was attached to a 2005 report into alleged detainee abuse at Guantánamo, but that the section covering the manual was not made public at the time.

Omar Khadr was 15 years old when the military imprisoned him. His defense alleges that interrogators coerced a false confession from Khadr partly through abuse and threats to rape him:

Mr. Khadr's defense team at Guantanamo Bay had asked the prosecution to provide handwritten notes relating to Mr. Khadr's interrogations in both Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan.

"Counsel for the government claim that, after a diligent search, they have been unable to locate and unable to provide responsive materials," LCdr. Kuebler writes in his affidavit.

It looks like Kuebler is right that the Pentagon insured that interrogators "routinely destroyed evidence" that might have been used to defend the Khadr and other detainees.

For its part, the Pentagon didn't even try to defend the destruction of evidence when the SOP was exposed.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said he was reviewing the matter Sunday evening.

Destruction of evidence is in fact routine at Guantanamo. Last December we learned that in 2005 the CIA ordered the destruction of videotapes of interrogations, apparently at the behest of the White House.

If the Guantanamo tribunals really are legitimate courts of law, as the WH insists, then the destruction of videotapes and interrogators' notes ought to count as obstruction of justice. This report from March remains relevant:

“They thought they were saving themselves from legal scrutiny, as well as possible danger from Al Qaeda if the tapes became public,” said Frederick P. Hitz, a former C.I.A. officer and the agency’s inspector general from 1990 to 1998, speaking of agency officials who favored eliminating the tapes. “Unknowingly, perhaps, they may have created even more problems for themselves.”

In a suit brought by Hani Abdullah, a Yemeni prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a federal judge has raised the possibility that, by destroying the tapes, the C.I.A. violated a court order to preserve all evidence relevant to the prisoner. In at least 12 other lawsuits, lawyers for prisoners at Guantánamo and elsewhere have filed legal challenges citing the C.I.A. tapes’ destruction, said David H. Remes, a Washington lawyer representing 16 prisoners.

“This is like any other cover-up,” Mr. Remes said. “We’ve only scratched the surface.”

Indeed, as the new revelation about the Pentagon manual demonstrates. Kuebler's find has been reported widely outside the US. Shame that there's only a single, brief report in the American news media.

++++

Obama says he would impose oil windfall profits tax

2008-06-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Monday he would impose a windfall profits tax on U.S. oil companies as he sought political gain from Americans' pain over high gasoline prices.

Launching a two-week focus on the economy after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama drew a sharp contrast between his economic policies and those of John McCain, his Republican rival in the November election.

"I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills," the Illinois senator said.

Obama charged that McCain's support for extending President George W. Bush's tax cuts means he is in favor of $2 trillion in corporate tax breaks, including $1.2 billion for Exxon Mobil Corp.

"If John McCain's policies were implemented, they would add $5.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. That isn't fiscal conservatism, that's what George Bush has done over the last eight years," Obama said.

McCain lied to Newsweek...will the press notice?

2008-06-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

by BarbinMD

Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 09:57:44 AM PDT

In an interview with Newsweek, John McCain tries to back away from his recent criticism of the media:

Q: Want to back up a little bit and talk about press coverage. One of the things that you mentioned in your speech in New Orleans was that you felt that the media hadn't recognized or had overlooked some of the attributes that Hillary Clinton had brought to the race. And I wondered—

MCCAIN: I did not [say that]—that was in prepared remarks, and I did not [say it]—I'm not in the business of commenting on the press and their coverage or not coverage...I can't change any of the coverage that I know of except to just campaign as hard as I can and try to seek the approval of the majority of my fellow citizens.

It is something that the American people will judge, and I won't complain about it and I won't praise it. I will just run my campaign and hope that the American people will make a judgment.

The problem is, he did say it (video from redlasso):

Senator Clinton has earned great respect for her tenacity and courage. The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes receives.

Oh, he'll complain about it. Then he'll just lie about it. The question is, will the media notice?

(h/t to Atrios)

More Iraq $ on the way?

2008-06-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

by Kagro X

Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 10:50:11 AM PDT

The House has another snoozer of a week coming up, with a whopping 37 suspensions on the calendar, to be followed by the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2008.

Hoo-wee!

But hey, that's the reality of life in Congress. It's not all the glamorous stuff that makes people send you hate mail, you know.

There is one bill of general interest looming, however, and that's the latest Iraq war funding bill, which could reach the floor this week depending on how final negotiations go. The funding comes once again in the form of an "emergency" supplemental -- the eighth such "emergency" bill of the Bush "administration" (not counting two additional "bridge funding" Iraq appropriations bills, which we're supposed to think are some other species of "Oh crap, we need more money again" bills).

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) says he'd like to see the bill get to the floor "earlier rather than later" in the week, which would likely mean Wednesday or Thursday rather than sticking around for big votes on Friday. Yes, most people would consider Monday or Tuesday "earlier," but 37 suspensions is quite a load. And frankly, they'll need it, since it's not at all clear that negotiations have progressed with regard to what should be in this bill.

What's to negotiate? Well, there's the question of whether or not to keep provisions extending unemployment benefits? And how about Senator Webb's "new GI bill?" Together, they add some $60 billion or so on top of the $108 billion that Bush says is the cap beyond which he'd veto the bill. But federal unemployment stats show the biggest monthly spike in the unemployment rate in over 20 years. And the GI bill is a no-brainer. Still, Blue Dogs in the House are balking at the lack of offsets to pay for these measures, and the Senate has already rejected tax increases on the top income brackets the Blue Dogs proposed as an answer.

To top it all off, we're back where we were last year on this issue, with the "Commander in Chief" threatening to hold the troops hostage if Congress doesn't rubber stamp his funding request. And that doesn't just mean giving him every dollar he asks for. It also means not giving him a penny more. Because he's "fiscally responsible!" This is something of a repeat of last year's battle, but with a new twist. In addition to his annual threat to veto any bill exceeding his request,

Bush said that if Congress does not act promptly, "critical accounts at the Department of Defense will soon run dry." He added that civilian employees may face "temporary layoffs," and the Pentagon would be forced to "close down a vital program that is getting potential insurgents off the streets and into jobs." If the supplemental spending bill is not enacted after July, Bush said, the department would "no longer be able to pay our troops," including ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let's let VetVoice's Brandon Friedman tell you about that one:

I just want to be clear about two points:

Insurgents kill Americans. So when the President says that the Pentagon would be forced to "close down" a program that gets "potential insurgents off the streets," he's really saying that he'll deliberately allow the threat to American troops in Iraq increase if he doesn't get his money. He's playing chicken with Congress at the expense of American lives in Iraq. Make no mistake about it: More insurgents on the streets would lead to more American deaths.

Perhaps someone knows more about this than I do, but I suspect Bush might be setting a precedent here. I'm not sure this has ever happened before.

Bush is also threatening to stop paying troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is funny, because I don't hear him threatening to cut the contracts of Halliburton, Blackwater, SAIC, and DynCorp--and thus cutting their employees' inflated salaries.

This is a clear indication that the Bush administration is more loyal to contractors than to soldiers. When forced to cut spending, Bush would rather starve members of the Armed Forces than cut the exorbitant pay checks given to those who work for privatized military companies.

That's some Commander Guy we've got there, ain't it?

So what will the Congress be doing this week? Falling all over itself in the rush to knuckle under, of course. But not before taking a few minutes to posthumously award a Congressional gold medal to Constantino Brumidi. Which is nice. Don't get me wrong.

Fighting For Florida's Economy

2008-06-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

With skyrocketing costs for food, gas, and healthcare, the economic downturn is hitting Florida families hard. I have been working hard with my colleagues in Congress to take action to strengthen and rebuild our economy. Earlier this month, Congress passed landmark legislation that will help ease the housing crisis and keep more Americans in their homes. In addition, 130 million American taxpayers started to receive their Economic Recovery Rebate Checks last week from the first economic stimulus package passed by the Congress in February. These measures will help struggling Florida families and will help get our economy back on track.

Halting Florida's Foreclosure Crisis

Florida homeowners are faced with a toxic combination of high property taxes, skyrocketing insurance premiums, and increasing mortgages. Combined with the downturn in the economy and a depressed real estate market, Florida now has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country and ending this foreclosure crisis is vital for our economic recovery.

Earlier this month, the House passed a series of measures that I co-sponsored and supported to help families become first-time homebuyers, assist existing homeowners, help families facing foreclosure keep their homes, and to stabilize property values in neighborhoods harmed by high foreclosure rates. These measures will:

Provide first time homebuyers with an interest free loan, up to $7500, towards a home down payment. Taxpayers would be required to repay any amount received under this provision to the government over 15 years in equal installments.

Provide Property tax relief for homeowners who claim the standard deduction by allowing them to claim an additional standard deduction of up to $350 ($700 for joint filers) for State and local real property taxes. This provision applies for 2008.

Help refinance at-risk borrowers into viable mortgages.

Strengthen regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and raises their loan limits to increase liquidity in the mortgage market. It also creates a new fund to boost the nation’s stock of affordable rental housing

Congressman Mahoney spoke on the floor to support the legislation.
Click Here to See Congressman Mahoney’s Speech.

Economic Recovery Rebate Checks Helping Florida Families

This comprehensive housing package comes just as 8.3 million families across Florida are getting their Economic Recovery Rebate checks that were part of the bipartisan economic stimulus package that Congress passed in February to halt the deepening recession. The economic stimulus package puts $145.9 billion in the hands of seniors and working families and it gives small business $44 billion in tax cuts this year. In Florida alone, the Economic Recovery Rebate checks will inject $6.8 billion back into the local economy, with the average Florida household receiving a check for $819.

In coming weeks, Congress will launch a second economic recovery effort that will bring relief to homeowners facing lost value in their homes or foreclosure, create highway construction jobs, and help American families struggling to make ends meet.

While longer term solutions must be paired with short-term recovery, this economic stimulus package provides unprecedented tax relief for working Americans and will inject confidence and consumer demand into our economy, promote economic growth and create jobs.

To learn more about getting your rebate, please visit my Online Tax Resource Center at: www.mahoney.house.gov.

Sincerely,

Congressman Tim Mahoney

2008-06-06T15:42:00.002-07:00

TRUE CRIMES - The Untold Story Behiind the Devastation of Iraq

Tonight, go to worldcantwait.org for an exciting live webcast of the event "True Crimes: The Untold Story Behind the Devastation of Iraq." The event, which will take place at New York City's Town Hall, features bestselling author JEREMY SCAHILL, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer CHRIS HEDGES, journalist LAILA AL-ARIAN, and The New Yorker's SEYMOUR HERSH, as they go behind the headlines to tell the untold story of the occupation of Iraq, the daily plight of Iraqi civilians, and the ongoing role of private mercenaries in America's so-called "war on terror."

The webcast will stream live at 7 p.m. EST. This event marks the book launches of Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians by Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian and the updated paperback edition of Blackwater: Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill.

As the director of The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime, I get many substantial messages from supporters on the crimes of the Bush regime, with proposals, events, thanks, and people continually urging me to see that the Bush & Cheney get brought to justice.

I also hear from some people who think the movement to repudiate the Bush program is passe, too negative, and unnecessary. They say we should be looking forward to what good the next president (whom they presume will not be a war criminal) could do.

These offerings are for both groups, and for those of you who ponder "how did the Bush regime get this far and what does it mean"?

BUSH: "We are Not Blinking!" Tom Engelhardt writes about a memoir from a Bush insider, General Ricardo Sanchez.

"Let me briefly set the scene, as Sanchez tells it on pages 349-350 of Wiser in Battle. It's April 6, 2004. L. Paul Bremer III, head of the occupation's Coalition Provisional Authority, as well as the President's colonial viceroy in Baghdad, and Gen. Sanchez were in Iraq in video teleconference with the President, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. (Assumedly, the event was recorded and so revisitable by a note-taking Sanchez.) The first full-scale American offensive against the resistant Sunni city of Fallujah was just being launched, while, in Iraq's Shiite south, the U.S. military was preparing for a campaign against cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

According to Sanchez, Powell was talking tough that day: "We've got to smash somebody's ass quickly," the general reports him saying. "There has to be a total victory somewhere. We must have a brute demonstration of power." (And indeed, by the end of April, parts of Fallujah would be in ruins, as, by August, would expanses of the oldest parts of the holy Shiite city of Najaf. Sadr himself would, however, escape to fight another day; and, in order to declare Powell's "total victory," the U.S. military would have to return to Fallujah that November, after the U.S. presidential election, and reduce three-quarters of it to virtual rubble.) Bush then turned to the subject of al-Sadr: "At the end of this campaign al-Sadr must be gone," he insisted to his top advisors. "At a minimum, he will be arrested. It is essential he be wiped out."

Not long after that, the President "launched" what an evidently bewildered Sanchez politely describes as "a kind of confused pep talk regarding both Fallujah and our upcoming southern campaign [against the Mahdi Army]." Here then is that "pep talk." While you read it, try to imagine anything like it coming out of the mouth of any other American president, or anything not like it coming out of the mouth of any evil enemy leader in the films of the President's -- and my -- childhood:

"'Kick ass!' [Bush] said, echoing Colin Powell's tough talk. 'If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.

"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!'"

There is a huge and growing body of evidence of war crimes, for those who wish to see them.

World Can't Wait is resolute in determination to halt the whole Bush program.

Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

World Can't Wait - info@worldcantwait.org - 866.973.4463 - 305 W. Broadway #185, NY, NY 10013

National Call-In Day for Impeachment

2008-06-06T15:42:00.001-07:00

The crimes of this administration are enormous: a widespread policy of torture and murder; a war that has killed a million Iraqis, 4,000 U.S. service members and devastated the lives of so many more; sophisticated programs for spying on U.S. citizens; lying to the public.

The future threats posed are ominous. As Ramsey Clark recently wrote: "In his remaining eight months, President Bush will continue to threaten other nations in violation of international law and clearly intends to commit new aggressions in his belligerent presidency. If not stopped by impeachment he may strike Iran's nuclear projects and immerse the United States in avoidable war for a generation far more exhausting than any we have known."

Today, Tuesday June 10, is the National Call-In Day for Impeachment. Take a moment right now and call Rep. John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee at 202-225-5126, 202-224-3121, 202-225-3951, 313-961-5670, or 734-675-4084. Demand that articles of impeachment be introduced by July 4.

Over one million people have voted to impeach Bush, Cheney and other high officials for high crimes and misdemeanors. It's time for Congressman Conyers to hear from you.

Make a donation today to support the impeachment movement by clicking here.

As Ramsey Clark wrote: "It is imperative that We, the People of the United States, demand of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and its Chairman John Conyers that they immediately commence consideration of the many allegations of impeachable offenses by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other civil Officers of the Untied States and present a comprehensive Bill of Impeachment for Committee consideration by July 4, 2008.

"I ask every American who cares about the integrity of our government and the welfare of our People and those we assault to immediately demand Chairman John Conyers and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives commence hearings on a Bill of Impeachment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others by July 4, 2008."

When you've made your call, please take a moment to encourage even just one friend to join with you and more than a million other Americans, and sign the referendum to Impeach Bush by going to our homepage: ImpeachBush.org. We will not rest until Bush and his cabal have been held accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and mass deprivation of civil rights and civil liberties. This is an unstoppable movement for justice.

Make your call now! This movement is making a difference. To support this campaign and the important work of the impeachment movement, please click this link and make an urgently needed donation.

-- All of us at ImpeachBush/VotetoImpeach.org

The Bush Legacy Tour Bus

2008-05-16T09:04:00.000-07:00