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1. Mayor Gavin Newsom, State Controller John Chiang and Christine Pelosi to headline Party’s Roosevelt Dinner
The Keynote Speaker for April 12th's Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt Dinner will be the Hon. Gavin Newsom, Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, who has been hailed as an innovator on healthcare, education and environmental policy.
Joining him as our special "Profile in Victory" speaker will be the Hon. John Chiang, State Controller of California, who was elected in 2006 in part by winning San Diego County.
The evening's festivities will be emceed by author, attorney, and grassroots activist Christine Pelosi, chair of the California Democratic Party's Platform Committee and is an elected member of the Democratic National Committee.
For more info go to http://www.sddemocrats.org
2. SNL Spoofs Hillary's 3AM Ad
http://www.redlasso.com/ClipPlayer.aspx?id=7d3f1db8-6438-4095-b625-ea9c9ab9fe55
3. Winter Soldier Hearings
Get ready for the horrible, honest reality of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan like you haven’t heard it before. For four days, from March 13 through March 16, hundreds of U.S. veterans of the two wars will descend on Washington and testify in the “Winter Soldier” hearings about what they really did while they were serving their country in Iraq. And their experiences aren’t pretty.
The event is inspired by the Winter Solider tribunal held in 1971 by Vietnam War vets, including John Kerry. The name comes from a quote from Thomas Paine, the revolutionary who rallied George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, saying: “These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
Paine was trying to keep Washington’s army from deserting in the face of a bitter winter and mounting defeats at the hands of the British. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War say the same type of courage is needed to confront the evils unleashed by the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Aaron Glantz 3.07.08 http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5044
More at http://thedishpanchronicles.blogspot.com/
4. The Sunday Funnies
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/03/the_sunday_funn_15.html
5. Help bring a Guantanamo prison cell to a town near you!
This spring Amnesty International will kick off a multi-state tour to bring a life-sized replica of a Guantánamo prison cell to cities across the country, stopping in key congressional districts and media markets to stiffen Congress' resolve on critical issues of torture and Guantánamo Bay. For what you can do to help go to: https://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/c.jhKPIXPCIoE/b.3937443/apps/ka/sd/donorcustom.asp
6. Bill Moyers Journal
Reason's Matt Welch and GOP Senator Mickey Edwards on John McCain.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03072008/watch2.html
7. CO2 output must cease altogether, studies warn
The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.
Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide. Juliet Eilperin 3.09.08 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23552526/
8. Dear Taxpayer: This letter cost you $42 million
At a cost of nearly $42 million, the IRS wants you to know: Your check is almost in the mail.
The notices are going out this month to an estimated 130 million households who filed returns for the 2006 tax year, at a cost $41.8 million, IRS spokesman John Lipold confirmed.
That works out to about 32 cents to print, process and mail each letter. It doesn't include the tab for another round of mailings planned for those who didn't file tax returns last year but may still qualify for a rebate.
"There are countless better uses for $42 million than a self-congratulatory mailer that gives the president a pat on the back for an idea that wasn't even his," Sen. Charles Schumer said Friday, arguing the IRS could more effectively spend the money to catch tax cheats. 3.07.08 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23525100/
9. Andy Borowitz: Bush Reveals Tap Water as Prescription Drug Plan
On a day when millions Americans were reeling from the news that there were trace amounts of prescription drugs in their drinking water, President George W. Bush made a stunning announcement at the White House.
“I am responsible for this,” Mr. Bush told reporters. “This is my idea of a prescription drug plan.”
Standing before a banner reading “Prescription Accomplished,” the president said that he hoped providing Americans with free medications via their tap water would prove to be “the finest legacy” of his Administration.
Mr. Bush indicated that America’s drug-laced waters could boost tourism in the U.S., adding that English rocker Pete Doherty was “getting on the next plane over here.”
Across the country, the announcement that President Bush had doped America’s drinking water with dozens of prescription medications drew a variety of reactions.
“It makes me proud to be an American,” said pitching great Roger Clemens.
Responding to the news that she had been imbibing anti-anxiety drugs in her water, New York resident Carol Foyler said, “I’m not worried about it, but come to think of it, I’m not worried about anything anymore.”
But Atlanta’s Tracy Klujian said that he believes all drinking water in the U.S. should come with a warning label indicating possible side effects.
“I had a glass of water yesterday and I had an erection lasting more than four hours,” he said.
Elsewhere, Rep. Ron Paul said that he is dropping out of the G.O.P. race, but would continue to run for president of Earth II. www.borowitzreport.com
10. Groups sue over polar bear
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA -- Three conservation groups sued the Department of the Interior on Monday for missing a deadline on a decision to list polar bears as threatened because of the loss of Arctic sea ice.
"Doing nothing means extinction for the polar bear. That's what the administration is doing -- nothing," said Kassie Siegel, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity and the lead author of the 2005 petition that sought the listing. 3.11.08 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-polar11mar11,1,3381697.story
11. 16,000 Republicans in Cuyahoga crossed over and voted Democratic in primary
A staggering 16,000-plus Republicans in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County switched parties when they voted in last week's primary.
That includes 931 in Rocky River, 1,027 in Westlake and 1,142 in Strongsville. More than a third of the Republicans in Solon and Bay Village switched. Pepper Pike had the most dramatic change: just under half its Republicans became Democrats. And some of those who changed - it's difficult to say how many - could be in trouble with the law.
At least one member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections wants to investigate some Republicans who may have crossed party lines only to influence which Democrat would face presumed Republican nominee John McCain in November. Amanda Garrett 3.09.08 http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/120505162549970.xml&coll=2
12. Mark Fiore: President Petro (video)
http://www.markfiore.com/president_petro_0
13. Colbert: AT&Treason (video)
http://action.credomobile.com/2008/03/colbert_attreason.html
14. AP: True Cost of War -- Staggering Number of Wounded Vets
NEW YORK The number of wounded soldiers has become a hallmark of the nearly 5-year-old Iraq war, pointing to both the use of roadside bombs as the extremists' weapon of choice and advances in battlefield medicine to save lives.
About 15 soldiers are wounded for every fatality, compared with 2.6 per death in Vietnam and 2.8 in Korea.
But with those saved soldiers comes a financial price — veterans groups and others claim the government is unwilling to pay. 3.07.08 http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003721852
15. 1 in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008
A new report by Pew's Public Safety Performance Project details how, for the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America are in jail or prison—a fact that significantly impacts state budgets without delivering a clear return on public safety. You can download the report at http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/One%20in%20100.pdf
16. Santa Cruz mayor declares March as "Lou Dobbs-free Month"
The mayor, in a quixotic move unrelated to city business, is asking Santa Cruz residents to turn off "Lou Dobbs Tonight."
The boycott, announced Wednesday in a proclamation written by Mayor Ryan Coonerty that declares March a "Lou Dobbs-free month," is retaliation for the CNN anchor's criticism of Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, after the congressman told an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official last week that his constituents view the agency as similar to the secret Nazi police, the Gestapo.
"This is a tongue-in-cheek effort at a real serious issue," said Coonerty, who acknowledged the proclamation is somewhat silly. "So, this is my little way of saying I wish our national journalists would engage in a little more thoughtful journalism ... and not pick out one word out of a two-hour hearing on a hard subject." 3/07/08 http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_8464458
17. Which Side Are You On? by Natalie Merchant (video)
This classic union song was written by Florence Reece in 1931 while mine owners were terrorizing coal workers in “bloody Harlan County.” Florence’s husband was a union leader who was targeted by the mine owners for retribution. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3z2f63Njto&eurl
18. Johnny Loves Georgie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhTyTQuwzbU&eurl
19. From the DAILY GRILL
- "We don't know if this is going to result in something that Congress will need to approve or not." -- White House Press Secretary Dana Perino on a long term Iraq agreement. 3/6/08
VERSUS
DELAHUNT: It's the position of this Administration that they do not need to come before Congress to receive authorization?
SATTERFIELD: That's correct. - Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) to Amb. David Satterfield, 3/4/08
"Al Gore's opulent lifestyle and his virtuous plea to save the planet from global warming don't mesh." - Competitive Enterprise Institute, 3/8/08
VERSUS
"Short of tearing it down and staring anew, I don't know how it could have been rated any higher." -- Kim Shinn, U.S. Green Building Council, on Gore's home receiving the Council's "second-highest rating for sustainable design." 12/13/07
"This is a national security problem. I'm told by people who are involved in helping just monitor the border that roughly 40 percent of the people that are intercepted crossing our border are not Mexicans." -- Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), 3/6/08
VERSUS
"Actually, the official stats for FY 2007 show slightly less than 7 percent are OTMs, or 'Other than Mexicans.'" -- Washington Post, 3/12/08
"I think when people take a look back at this moment in our economic history, they'll recognize tax cuts work." -- Bush, 3/12/08
VERSUS
"[M]aking the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and Alternative Minimum Tax relief permanent would add $4.3 trillion to deficits and debt over just the next ten years and would substantially worsen the nation's already serious long-term fiscal problems." -- Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 1/28/08
20. Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida
An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network. Warren P. Strobel 3.10.08 http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/29959.html
21. NoJohn.com - Former McCain supporter lets him have it (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCtaN_ztjuU
22. Late-Night Political Jokes for Dems
"Here's what happened, it was one of those sting deals. And they caught Eliot Spitzer, Gov. Spitzer, with a wire, recording him soliciting a prostitute. And I'm thinking, 'Holy cow, we can't get Bin Laden, but we got Spitzer. We got Sptizer.'" --David Letterman
"How about that presidential race, you excited about that? We're gonna have a new president. How 'bout that John McCain? I like that John McCain. But he, uh, John McCain and his campaign received a serious setback ... a couple of days ago he was endorsed by President Bush." --David Letterman
"I do, I like that John McCain, he looks like a guy who waits all day for the mail to come. He looks like a guy who's dating your mom. He looks like one of those guys who calls the waitress 'Toots'" --David Letterman (Read more Letterman jabs at McCain)
"You know, there's talk in some Democratic circles of letting the states of Michigan and Florida re-vote. Today, Al Gore said, 'Oh, now you think of this! Great!'" --Jay Leno
"According to the FBI wiretap, they had the transcript, Gov. Spitzer was listed as Client No.9. No. 9? He's the governor, who were the eight guys in front of him? You'd think as governor, you'd at least get to go first." --Jay Leno
"John McCain just announced that later this month he might take a trip to Iraq. ... Which might be a bad idea, because the last time McCain went to a war zone we didn't hear from him for five years." --Conan O'Brien
"President Bush said Thursday that he would probably accept foreign donations to build his presidential library in Dallas, and would keep donor's names confidential if they do not want to be identified, and yet, still nothing." --Amy Poehler
"But it's interesting, this race is so even that each side could make the case that they should be the nominee, and neither one of them is going anywhere. Which, I think it's a bad sign for the country, when the Democratic campaign is predicted to last longer than the Republican nominee." --Bill Maher
"But congratulations to John McCain, he wrapped up the Republican nomination this week. And we know this is official now because Mike Huckabee dropped out and said he was joining forces with John McCain. Oh, great, you've got one guy who doesn't believe in evolution, and another guy who remembers it." --Bill Maher
"Also eliminated last night, Congressman Ron Paul, of Texas, says he's winding down his presidential campaign. His supporter is devastated. Ron says he's looking forward, though, to spending more time with his wife Mrs. Paul, and her delicious pre-packaged seafood products." --Jimmy Kimmel
"It was a great night for John McCain. In fact, all is going just perfectly for John McCain until today when President Bush endorsed him for president. All that hard work right down the drain. The truth is, McCain asked President Bush to endorse him. I'm starting to think that maybe the guy likes torture." --Jimmy Kimmel
23. Chasers War On Everything (video)
Humor from Down Under at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0n4Oehj6y8&eurl
24. NY Times' Herbert misrepresented Clinton's comments about Obama's religion
During the interview on the March 2 edition of CBS' 60 Minutes, Clinton repeatedly made clear that she believes Obama is not a Muslim. Indeed, Clinton's first comment in response to Kroft's initial question on the subject -- "You don't believe that Senator Obama is a Muslim?" -- was, "Of course not." http://mediamatters.org/items/200803090001?f=h_top
25. Sordid Details on 'Black Site' on Diego Garcia Island Come to Light
Human rights attorneys and a handful of British MPs have long raised the possibility that Diego Garcia, a small island in the Indian Ocean that is home to a massive American military base, has played a role in extraordinary rendition -- and that it is among the United States' "black sites" -- secret CIA-run prisons, the existence of which President Bush himself confirmed in 2006. Even loose-lipped American officials have acknowledged it. As London-based human rights attorney Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal organization Reprieve (which, over a year ago, unearthed flight logs recording the arrival and departure of a CIA rendition plane at Diego Garcia), wrote in the Guardian last January:
British denials are difficult to square with the words of U.S. Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey ... recently retired from running Southcom, the military command that oversees Guantánamo. He was asked in May 2004 where the thousands of ghost prisoners were being held. "You know, Bagram Air Field, Diego Garcia, Guantánamo, 16 camps throughout Iraq," he replied.
Yet the Blair and Brown administrations continually denied it. Until now. Liliana Segura 3.11.08. http://www.alternet.org/rights/79273/
26. What Why How Who - John McCain
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/03/what_why_how_wh.html
27. Looming Threat for Dems: People Against the War Prefer McCain as President
When the issue is war and peace, Democrats should be as wary as George Tenet about predicting a "slam dunk." Frank Rich, like so many others, assumes that voters who are against the war will choose the candidate who is against the war. Ah, if only our fellow citizens were indeed so logical, how much easier it would be to forecast elections -- and what a different nation this would be.
In fact, the polling numbers from late February and early March already show a less logical, more disturbing trend. A clear majority still think the war was a mistake. But when the question is which candidate will do best handling the war, McCain wins every time. In an LA Times/Bloomberg (LAT/B) poll, it's no contest. He outpolls Clinton on the question 51-35 and outpolls Obama 47-34. A Washington Post/ABC (WP/ABC) poll pitted McCain only against Obama. Though the result was closer, McCain still won 48-43. Yet 63% in that poll said the war was not worth fighting.
In a New York Times/CBS News (NYT/CBS) poll, 58% said the U.S. should never have attacked Iraq. Yet again McCain gets the highest score on "making the right decisions on Iraq"; 58% are confident about McCain (27% "very" confident), 57% about Obama (only 20% "very" confident), and 50% about Clinton. Among the crucial independent voters, McCain gets 62% confidence, while Obama gets only 54% and Clinton 51%. Though 83% of Democrats say the war was wrong, a whopping 42% are confident McCain will make the right decisions on the war, while 21% of Democrats have no confidence in Obama and the same number no confidence in Clinton. Ira Chernus, 3.12.08. http://www.alternet.org/election08/79351/
28. The Iraq Follies
A list of 18 of those nearly forgotten episodes, in roughly chronological order.
- 1) The day before the invasion, Bill O'Reilly said, "If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation; I will not trust the Bush administration again, all right?"
2) Phil Donahue lost his show at MSNBC, he later claimed, because he did not wave the flag enough. A leaked NBC memo confirmed Donahue's suspicion, noting that the host "presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.... At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
3) After the fall of Baghdad, MSNBC's Chris Matthews declared, "We're all neocons now."
4) The same day, Joe Scarborough, also on MSNBC, said, "I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians, and Hollywood types."
The others 14 are at http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2008/03/the-iraq-follies.html
29. Spitzer's Sex Life Is Weapon of Mass Distraction for Bunch of Bad News for Bush
On Monday, we learned: The Iraq war will top 3 trillion dollars; a former Pentagon official has written a book attacking the CIA and other US officials over the US-led Iraq war; 5 8 US soldiers were killed in a Baghdad blast; an Iraqi tribal leader - the head of an 'Awakening Council' - and three others were killed in a Diyala province suicide bombing; CIA torture will continue, per Bush; the House Judiciary Committee has filed suit to force two White House officials to provide information about the firing of U.S. attorneys; more trouble for Carlyle group has surfaced; oil has soared to $108 $110 per barrel; gas prices have reached a new record; a lawsuit has been filed claiming that the Fish and Wildlife Service is now in breach of its own mandate; an AP investigation has revealed that a vast array of pharmaceuticals are in the US water supply. Oh. Last but not least: The Dow and Nasdaq are down hundreds of points, again. But, here is the mainstream media's headline: Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring. 3.10.08 Lori Price http://www.legitgov.org/spitzer_sex_life_weapon_mass_distraction.html
30. Awareness of Iraq War Fatalities Plummets
Public awareness of the number of American military fatalities in Iraq has declined sharply since last August. Today, just 28% of adults are able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war. As of March 10, the Department of Defense had confirmed the deaths of 3,974 U.S. military personnel in Iraq.3.12.08 http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=401
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1. Katrina vanden Heuvel: Missile Defense: "Longest Running Scam" Exposed
In Congress yesterday, Representative John Tierney, Chair of the House National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, convened the first in a series of hearings to examine a US missile defense program that is out of control, straining relations with allies, and renewing an arms race with Russia.
This is the first comprehensive review of the program since 1993 – the year before Republicans took control of Congress – and it's long overdue. The focus yesterday was on the extent of the missile threat – as compared to other security vulnerabilities – and whether spending more than $10 billion annually on ballistic missile defense (BMD) is justifiable from that perspective.
With the Administration requesting a record $12.3 billion for missile defense this year, pushing its European-based missile defense system on Czech and Polish citizens who want nothing to do with it, and fueling a new arms race with Russia, the need to put an end to this madness is clear. The jig is up, and hopefully Tierney's hearings will reveal the absolute folly at the root of the Missile Defense Program, and return us to a sane and proven path of diplomacy and nuclear nonproliferation negotiations. 3/07/08 http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=295515
2. Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail : IRAQ: Where Happiness Has Gone
After losing sight of what they knew to be normal life, residents across Baquba seem to have fallen into a depression.
Close to the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, March 19, Iraqis today say they feel humiliated in their own country. "People have forgotten how to be happy," says resident Bashar Ameen. "Each day, we have only more suffering."
On the two main Islamic festivals through a year, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, people customarily buy new clothes and decorate their homes. It is meant to be a time of happiness and reconciliation. Now it is on these days that depression is most apparent.
"We did not prepare for the recent festival because we do not feel it is the joyous occasion it used to be," Aiman Nory, an employee at the directorate-general of education told IPS.
Children are forgetting the joy of what were the big days for them. "Before the invasion, streets were full on festival days with children playing and families walking about," Abdul-Kareem Faraj, a 44-year-old who once owned a sweets shop told IPS. "This occupation has killed the happiness of children. 3.07.08 http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41494
3. Obama and Clinton Supporters Must Drop Out of the Race
I think one thing is clear this far into the Democratic primary race: Both Obama's and Clinton's supporters must now drop out of the race.
Hillary Clinton's supporters have gotten incredibly annoying, with their chants of "Yes She Can," and charges of cultism and their desperate yelps of schadenfreude every time Clinton looks like she might actually be "recapturing the lead" that she never had.
And Obama's supporters, yes, you too are incredibly annoying, with your accusations of Clintonian Republicanism and your whiny little cries about how you're going to take your ball and run home if your candidate doesn't win the primary.
Supporters of both candidates, please listen closely. For the good of the Party -- no, for the good of the Nation! -- the time has come for you to leave this race.
No more late nights in front of MSNBC. No more blogging. No more reading TPM. No more arguing at the watercooler, or at the happy hour after work at TGIF's.
Find a hobby -- knitting is really getting popular these days!
Anything, anything but your insistent and continual droning on and on about how perfect your candidate is.
Remember -- the future of this Republic is at stake.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter. 3.05.08 http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/obama-and-clinton-supporters-m.php
4. Paul Krugman: The Anxiety Election
Democrats won the 2006 election largely thanks to public disgust with the Iraq war. But polls — and Hillary Clinton’s big victory in Ohio — suggest that if the Democrats want to win this year, they have to focus on economic anxiety.
Some people reject that idea. They believe that this election should be another referendum on the war, and, perhaps even more important, about the way America was misled into that war. That belief is one reason many progressives fervently support Barack Obama, an early war opponent, even though his domestic platform is somewhat to the right of Mrs. Clinton’s.
As an early war opponent myself, I understand their feelings. But should and ought don’t win elections. And polls show that the economy has overtaken Iraq as the public’s biggest concern.
True, the news from Iraq will probably turn worse again. Meanwhile, a hefty majority of voters continue to say that the war was a mistake, and people are as angry as ever about the $10 billion a month wasted on the neocons’ folly.
Yet for the time being, public optimism about Iraq is rising: 53 percent of the public believes that the United States will definitely or probably succeed in achieving its goals. So anger about the war isn’t likely to be decisive in the election.
The state of the economy, on the other hand, could well give Democrats a huge advantage — especially, to be blunt about it, with white working-class voters who supported President Bush in 2004. 3.07.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/opinion/07krugman.html
5. Bernie Sanders: Changing Our National Priorities
There are three major trends in American society that must be addressed when the Senate next week debates the federal budget. First, the United States has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major nation in the industrialized world, and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider. Second, it is a national disgrace that we have, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth. More than 18 percent of our kids live in poverty. Third, year after year, we have had record-breaking deficits and our national debt will soon be $10 trillion. That is a grossly unfair burden to leave to our kids and grandchildren. It also is economically unsustainable.
We have a moral responsibility to put children ahead of millionaires and billionaires. That is why, during the Senate’s consideration of the budget resolution, I will offer an amendment to restore the top income tax bracket to 39.6 percent for households earning more than $1 million a year.
Restoring the top income tax bracket for people making more than $1 million to what it was in 2000 would increase revenue by $32.5 billion over the next three years, according to the Joint Tax Committee, including $10.8 billion next year alone.
I would devote that revenue the needs of our children; job creation; and deficit reduction. 3.08.08 http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/08/7555/
6. Robert Scheer: Why We Need Iran to Help Get Us out of Iraq
Are the media dumb or just out to lunch? Sorry to be intemperate, but how else can one explain the meager attention paid to the truly historic visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Iraq? Not only is he the first Mideast head of state to visit the country since its alleged liberation, but the very warm official welcome offered by the Iraqi government to the most vociferous critic of the United States speaks volumes to the abject failure of the Bush doctrine.
On Tuesday, Condoleezza Rice reiterated the administration's position that Iran is behind the turmoil that has engulfed the Mideast from Beirut to Baghdad and, most recently, Israel, where what she claims are Iranian-supplied rockets have totally destroyed the belated Bush peace plan. There is also the matter of Iran's nuclear program, which President Bush condemned once again over the weekend. But what leverage does the United States have over Iran when, as the image of Ahmadinejad holding hands with the top leaders of Iraq demonstrated to the world, we have put the disciples of the Iranian ayatollahs in power in Baghdad? There is no face-saving exit from Iraq without the cooperation of Tehran, and the folks who call America the "Great Satan" now hold the high cards. 3.06.08 http://www.alternet.org/story/78902/
7. Charles Hurt: Only Gore Can Stop A Meltdown
-- IF AL GORE can pull himself away from saving the planet long enough, he might want to consider rescuing the Demo cratic Party from the clutches of utter self-destruction.
Campaigning against an unpopular war in Iraq, a sputtering economy and a disappearing dollar, Democrats cannot lose in November.
But wait! They're Democrats!
"The only reason we ever lose is when we beat ourselves," one nervous Democrat grumbled yesterday as the primary dogfight dragged on.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has made it clear she won't quit and no one expects Barack Obama to exit - and so on to the Denver party convention they go, viciously attacking one another all the way.
Forget the red phone for a national-security crisis. Where is the red phone for a political party trying to destroy itself?
And where is the party leader with the respect, stature, wisdom and influence to answer the crisis phone?
The inconvenient truth is that the red phone is now ringing and Al Gore hears it. The only question is whether he has the guts to pick it up. 3.06.08 http://www.nypost.com/seven/03062008/news/columnists/only_gore_can_stop_a_meltdown_100624.htm
8. Mark Leibovich: A Scorecard on Conventional Wisdom
RHETORICAL pop quiz:
- • Who was more dead, Hillary Rodham Clinton a week ago or John McCain six months ago?
• Whose nomination was more inevitable, Mrs. Clinton’s six months ago or Barack Obama’s two weeks ago?
Both questions are of course moot — if not ridiculous in retrospect (as fleeting as Rudy’s front-runner status or the media swoon over Fred Thompson).
Yet they inspire a proclamation that might actually be true: The accuracy rate of “conventional wisdom” in this presidential election has plummeted to new lows.
The economist John Kenneth Galbraith coined the term “conventional wisdom” in “The Affluent Society,” his 1958 book. He was describing expectations commonly ascribed to an omniscient “public sentiment.” In that time, a small, powerful class of broadcasters, columnists, thinkers and political leaders trafficked in such assumptions, often faulty (e.g., “a Catholic will never become president”).
Today, new swarms of self-styled pundits can formulate conventional wisdom, or merely advance it, in any number of forums — e-mail, cable, blogs, talk radio. Conventional wisdom now just seems to bubble up, fatherless, with minimal brain work or reflection behind it. Its life cycle — the creation, debunking and subsequent hand-wringing of “old” conventional wisdom — has been radically compressed.
“The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events,” Mr. Galbraith wrote, and never has the march of events trampled so harshly upon conventional wisdom as it has in this election. 3.09.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/weekinreview/09leibovich.html
9. Eric Margolis: Purpose of military buildup soon apparent
The Pentagon has just warned that China's 17.6% increase in its 2008 military budget "threatens the stability of Asia."
China's official military budget is $58.8 billion, but the real figure is estimated at around $110 billion. Even so, Washington's warning was pretty rich coming from the sole superpower that spends 10 times more on its military than China -- a nation with four times the U.S. population.
American Defense Secretary Robert Gates unblushingly accused China of "lack of transparency" in concealing major defense programs. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Some $200-250 billion of secret "black" projects are hidden in the Pentagon's trillion-dollar budget and those of other departments.
Washington's constant warnings about Cuba, Syria, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea make it look like a spinster terrified by a mouse. The combined military spending of those nations is a paltry $10 billion. The U.S. and its closest allies account for two-thirds of the world's military spending. Trying to keep up with the West militarily drove the old Soviet Union to bankruptcy.
The U.S. spends more on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than Russia and China do on defense.
Now, the Bush administration is trying a rerun of Reagan years by goading Russia into more military spending to justify high U.S. military spending. Without the "threat" from China and Russia, how will the Pentagon justify a new generation of F-22 and F-35 fighters it wants, new tankers, heavy bombers, submarines, carriers and other surface warships?
You don't need any such fancy hardware to fight rag-tag jihadis armed with rifles and homemade bombs. 3.09.08 http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2008/03/09/4952326-sun.php
10. Matthew Cole: Killing ourselves in Afghanistan
For nearly two years now, the military situation inside Afghanistan has deteriorated. Violence has increased, security has shrunk and the Taliban have brought the war to Kabul. Coalition casualties increased more than 20 percent last year and estimates of civilian deaths for 2007 range as high as 6,000. My own repeated trips to the country have convinced me that not only are Haji Muhammed's assertions about Pakistan's role in the violence true, but that the U.S. -- or at least its representatives on the ground in Afghanistan -- has long been aware of the problem.
Interviews with Afghan and U.S. intelligence officials involved in covert U.S. operations along the border suggest that U.S. intelligence operatives have known since 2005 that the Pakistan army and the ISI have been training and arming insurgents in the Tribal Areas who cross into Afghanistan to kill Afghan, U.S. and coalition forces. "Our guys are getting killed because Pakistan has a double policy," said an American policy advisor who travels frequently to U.S military and CIA bases near the border. But the same advisor says intelligence officials have only recently gotten through to their superiors in Washington that Pakistan is part of the problem.
On my own trip to an American military base near the border in Afghanistan's Kunar province in October 2006, I was asked on arrival to have an off-the-record conversation with a U.S. Army public affairs officer. He explained a few rules about avoiding sections of the base that were run by the CIA and Special Forces. Then he told me that although we could literally see Pakistan from where we stood, I should ask no questions about what role Pakistan played in Afghanistan's war. "You might as well pretend it doesn't exist," he said. He understood reporters were interested, and acknowledged that most of the insurgents operating in Kunar were based across the border in Pakistan. But the Army's orders were, essentially, to ignore the problem. "Pakistan," he said, smiling, "is a committed ally in the war on terror." 3.10.08 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/03/10/taliban/
11. Bush's tortured veto
'We do not torture," President Bush insists, yet that assurance is accompanied by an unspoken "but." In vetoing legislation that would require CIA interrogators to abide by the same humanitarian standards imposed on their counterparts in the U.S. military, Bush again has drowned out his denials with an ominous silence about just what "enhanced" interrogation tactics he considers appropriate.
In a shameful Saturday radio address justifying his veto, Bush argued that CIA interrogators can't be confined to techniques allowed by the Army Field Manual "because the manual is publicly available and easily accessible on the Internet." So, of course, are the Geneva Convention and the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibit "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment." By the president's logic, acceptance of the humanitarian standards included in those documents also deprives the United States of the element of surprise. 3.11.08 http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-veto11mar11,1,675199.story
12. Nat Hentoff: Guantánamo trials fail the Nuremberg test
In Sen. Christopher Dodd's superb book, "Letters from Nuremberg: My Father's Narrative of a Quest for Justice" (Crown, 2007), he quotes his father, Thomas Dodd, who became the No. 2 prosecutor in the American team at Nuremberg: "Those of us who were privileged to serve at the Nuremberg Trial are proud of the entire proceeding. ... Every right of the defendants was scrupulously observed. They were given every possible opportunity to make every explanation and every possible defense.
"Witnesses were obtained for them merely at their request.
Documents were made available, library facilities were at their disposal, and throughout every hour of the trial they were afforded every opportunity to answer every charge." As others and I have reported, the procedures at Guantanamo -- by glaring contrast -- are the very opposite of those at Nuremberg.
The Nazis had vigorous lawyers waging their defense; they were able to talk to lawyers in private without a video camera watching; and all their correspondence and notes were not handed over to the military.
And that's only part of the utter mockery of due process at Guantanamo. But at Nuremberg, American prosecutor Thomas Dodd said of that trial: "This was a demonstration of judicial process honestly at work. I saw it take place -- this moral victory -- from day to day, slowly but surely in the dock and at the defense tables." But the Bush administration (reported in the Feb. 16, 2008, Economist) has actually authorized the State Department, "in a memo to American embassies," to suggest that the military commissions "be compared to the Nuremberg trials, partly because no one fussed when the Nazis got the death penalty and partly because, say the generals, legal protections (at Guantanamo) will be greater than at Nuremberg." Does Condoleezza Rice really believe that? In a lead editorial (Feb. 12), Financial Times nailed Guantanamo as "a surrender of the rule of law in the face of jihad totalitarianism. The shameful collusion of the U.S. Congress in helping the administration revamp the military tribunals after the Supreme Court revoked them (Hamdan v. Rumsfield, 2006) cannot disguise that." And this is being done in our name. 3.11.08 http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/775034.html
13. The true cost of war
Some time in 2005, Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, who also served as an economic adviser under Clinton, noted that the official Congressional Budget Office estimate for the cost of the war so far was of the order of $500bn. The figure was so low, they didn't believe it, and decided to investigate. The paper they wrote together, and published in January 2006, revised the figure sharply upwards, to between $1 and $2 trillion. Even that, Stiglitz says now, was deliberately conservative: "We didn't want to sound outlandish."
So what did the Republicans say? "They had two reactions," Stiglitz says wearily. "One was Bush saying, 'We don't go to war on the calculations of green eye-shaded accountants or economists.' And our response was, 'No, you don't decide to fight a response to Pearl Harbour on the basis of that, but when there's a war of choice, you at least use it to make sure your timing is right, that you've done the preparation. And you really ought to do the calculations to see if there are alternative ways that are more effective at getting your objectives. The second criticism - which we admit - was that we only look at the costs, not the benefits. Now, we couldn't see any benefits. From our point of view we weren't sure what those were."
Appetites whetted, Stiglitz and Bilmes dug deeper, and what they have discovered, after months of chasing often deliberately obscured accounts, is that in fact Bush's Iraqi adventure will cost America - just America - a conservatively estimated $3 trillion. The rest of the world, including Britain, will probably account for about the same amount again. And in doing so they have achieved something much greater than arriving at an unimaginable figure: by describing the process, by detailing individual costs, by soberly listing the consequences of short-sighted budget decisions, they have produced a picture of comprehensive obfuscation and bad faith whose power comes from its roots in bald fact. Some of their discoveries we have heard before, others we may have had a hunch about, but others are completely new - and together, placed in context, their impact is staggering. There will be few who do not think that whatever the reasons for going to war, its progression has been morally disquieting; following the money turns out to be a brilliant way of getting at exactly why that is. 2.28.08 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/28/iraq.afghanistan
14. Stephen Kinzer: Iran still a target?
In a reality-based world, the idea that the United States should attack Iran would by now seem most implausible. Not only is the Iraq war taking a terrible financial and human toll, but American intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Iran should logically fall into the same category as Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and North Korea - countries that behave in ways the U.S. dislikes but do not pose such imminent threats that they must be bombed.
Unfortunately, though, reality is not what guides the Bush administration. It is still driven by the impulses that led to the Iraq invasion. This means that the world may wake up any morning between now and Jan. 20 to news that U.S. missiles are falling on Iran. Ominously, Adm. William J. Fallon, who had strongly opposed the idea of attacking Iran, announced his early retirement yesterday.
The fact that most Americans seem to believe the threat of such an attack has receded may actually make it more possible. Officials in Washington could easily take the lack of sustained public and political protest as a sign that citizens don't really care whether the U.S. launches this new war. 3.12.08 http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.iran12mar12,0,5070600.story
15. Tom Teepen: Bush's chamber of horrors
As the governor of Texas, George W. Bush was the king of the death house and now, as president, he's the king of the torture chamber as well. A matched set. So add another weighty clunker to the president's leaden legacy.
Bush was a happy executioner. He presided over 152 executions, a modern record for governors. He rejected clemency pleas from prisoners who were plainly retarded, about whose guilt there were serious doubts, for whom mitigating circumstances had been casually dismissed and whose lawyers had been inept to the point of clownishness.
Most notoriously, he signed off on the execution of Karla Faye Tucker, whose plea for a commutation to life imprisonment had drawn international support, including from Pope John Paul II. Bush, who has claimed wonders for his own religious conversion, dismissed hers indifferently and privately mocked her appeal for clemency as if it was a sour joke.
Now, building on that humane foundation, Bush has vetoed legislation that would have barred the CIA from using "harsh" interrogation methods. "Harsh" is a euphemism for torture, including waterboarding, the near-drowning which has been recognized as torture ever since its popularity with the Inquisition and which, until Bush, had been prosecuted in this country as the crime it obviously is. 3.12.08 http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/mar/12/bushs-chamber-of-horrors/
16. Robert Scheer:Spitzer’s Shame Is Wall Street’s Gain
Tell me again: Why should we get all worked up over the revelation that the New York governor paid for sex? Will it bring back to life the eight U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq that same day in a war that makes no sense and has cost this nation trillions in future debt? Will it save those millions of homes that hardworking folks all over the country are losing because of financial industry shenanigans that Eliot Spitzer, as much as anyone, attempted to halt? Perhaps it provides some insight into why oil has risen to $108 a barrel, benefiting most of all the oil sheiks whom our taxpayer-supported military has kept in power?
Sure, the guy, by his own admission, is quite pathetic in all those small, squirrelly ways that have messed up the lives of other grand public figures before him, but why is an all-too-human sin, amply predicted in early Scripture, getting all this incredible media play as some sort of shocking event? The answer is that, while having precious little to do with serious corruption in public life, it does have a great deal to do with stoking flagging newspaper sales and television ratings.
The sad truth is that reporting on major corruption, say, the rationalizations of a president who has authorized torture, doesn’t cut it as a marketing bonanza. Just days before this grand exposé, the president vetoed a bill banning torture, and instead of being greeted with horrified disgust, the president’s deep denigration of this nation’s presumed ideals was met with a vast public yawn. Torture, unlike paid sex, doesn’t have legs as a news story. 3.12.08 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080311_the_real_shame_about_eliot_spitzer/
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