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1. San Diego County voter registration numbers
- San Diego County: Democrats 482,446, Republicans 513,024
City of San Diego: Democrats 236,086, Republicans 183,852.
For voter registration numbers by Supervisorial District, Congressional District, Senatorial District, Assembly District and by City go to http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/voters/Eng/reports/current_reg_report.pdf
The San Diego County Democratic Party Voter Registration team uses Yahoo Groups to send out emails to their volunteers. To join the voter registration team go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sdvoter/ and click on "Join This Group."
2. The Bush-McCain Challenge
An online quiz to see if you can tell the difference between Bush and McCain is at http://www.bush-mccainchallenge.com/
Watch the video at http://www.bush-mccainchallenge.com/video.html?id=
3. From the DAILY GRILL
- "Critics of the war in Iraq often try to minimize -- if not dismiss -- the links between Saddam Hussein and terrorists. As they say, facts are stubborn things." -- Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), 5/2/08
VERSUS
"Saddam [Hussein] did not trust al-Qa'ida or any other radical Islamist group and did not want to cooperate with them." -- Senate Intelligence Committee report, September 2006
"When the history is written, it will be said this is a safer country...because George Bush was president." -- VP Cheney, 5/2/08
VERSUS
"Al Qaeda leaders continued to plot attacks and to cultivate stronger operational connections that radiated outward from Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe." -- State Department report on international terrorism in 2007, 4/30/08
"I could cite statistics to show how the 'surge'...has been paying off: Civilian deaths were down more than 80 percent and U.S. deaths down more than 60 percent between December 2006 and March 2008." - Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot, 5/5/08
VERSUS
"A spike in casualties...could be a sign that tough combat is under way that will lead to the enemy's defeat and the creation of a more peaceful environment in the future." -- Max Boot, 5/3/08
"I hope that the military will realize they have to accept aid from everybody they can possibly accept it from." -- First Lady Laura Bush on the Burmese government's response to the recent cyclone, 5/5/08
VERSUS
"[T]he U.S. government was turning down many allies' offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for [Hurricane] Katrina's victims." -- Washington Post, 4/29/07
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4. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says the consumer price index indicates inflation is running along at an annual rate of 3.1 percent. Meanwhile, we are stocking up on food staples, fearing price increases and shortages. Gasoline has reached four dollars a gallon. Well, the BLS calculates “core inflation” by ignoring food and energy prices, and recently changed its methodology for seasonal adjustments. What’s the real inflation rate? Nearly 12 percent. Richard Warnick 4.27.08 http://oneutah.org/2008/04/27/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/
5. Post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths
The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care according to the government's top psychiatric researcher. Avram Goldstein http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a2_71Klo2vig&refer=home
6. Mark Fiore: General Happy Swellspin (Ret.) (Animation)
http://www.markfiore.com/general_happy_swellspin_ret_0
7. "War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations. http://www.warmadeeasythemovie.org/index.html
Watch Eason Jordan on CNN's War Coverage is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRKU6l6xyto&eurl
Buy the DVD for $19.95 plus tax and shipping at http://www.theconnextion.com/warmadeeasy/wme_index2.cfm?ArtistID=422
8. Support the "Stop Outsourcing Security Act"
Support Rep. Jan Schakowsky's "Stop Outsourcing Security Act" (H.R. 4102), which would phase out private security companies like Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan - for what you can do go to http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/banblackwater
9. Candles - 100 Years in Iraq: And you thought no one could be worse than George Bush (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1V7rJfo1TE&eurl
10. Late-Night Political Jokes for Dems
- "I don't know if you're aware of this. We just passed a big milestone yesterday. True story. Yesterday was the five-year anniversary of President Bush's speech in front of the 'Mission Accomplished' banner. Yeah, to celebrate, today, President Bush gave a speech in front of a banner that said 'Economic Recession Over.'" --Conan O'Brien
"According to the latest CNN poll, President Bush's disapproval rating is 71%. 71%. That's unbelievable, isn't it? That 29% still approve? Who are these people?" --Jay Leno
"A federal study released today shows that President Bush's $1 billion-a-year 'Reading First' program has done nothing to increase the reading skills of young students. However, his 'Oil Company First' program is going like gangbusters." --Jay Leno
"Today also happens to be the fifth anniversary of the day that President Bush stood in front of an aircraft carrier with the huge 'Mission Accomplished' banner behind him. Turned out, unless the mission was to blow two trillion dollars and wind up with four dollar a gallon gas, it wasn't accomplished. ... I'm going to miss President Bush, as a comedian. Not as an American." --Jimmy Kimmel
"I guess it's good news. Government figures released by President Bush today shows we are not in a recession. Yeah. Unless, of course, you have to buy gas or food or some other luxury item. Then you're screwed." --Jay Leno
"Honest to God, David Blaine held his breath for 17 minutes. Now that's entertainment. Are you with me on that? Underwater for 17 minutes without breathing. Or as Dick Cheney calls it, interrogation." --David Letterman
"David Blaine today broke the world record for holding his breath, on 'Oprah' - 17 minutes, four seconds. Blaine has now frozen himself, he's starved himself, he's gone without sleep for weeks, and deprived himself of oxygen. Today, Dick Cheney said, 'See, it's not torture. It's magic.'" --Jimmy Kimmel
"Barack Obama said in a speech yesterday, he now officially repudiates the Reverend Wright. To which President Bush said, 'Repudiate. That's like a black word, right?' I don't think he gets it. Like ebonics, I think." --Jay Leno
And why not? But I mean, you think about it. The primary season is just dragging and dragging and dragging and the election is not for another three years. So last week Pennsylvania, next week, my home state of Indiana. Then North Carolina primaries. Then Canada. Right? And then on to Europe. The European primaries are coming up." --David Letterman
"How about that John McCain? John McCain is the guy, don't you think? I like John McCain. He looks like the kind of guy that walks into Circuit City and says, 'Do you have typewriter ribbons?'" --David Letterman
"Kind of a strange thing happened this weekend at a big event in Washington, DC. President Bush, I guess he got excited, so he picked up a baton and he started conducting the U.S. Marine Band. Yeah, unfortunately, the president got upset because the band didn't know the song, 'The Wheels on the Bus.' They go 'round and 'round, apparently." --Conan O'Brien
"If you're following the campaign, you know John McCain is currently on his tour of forgotten places. He's touring what he calls forgotten places. Of course, when you're 71, the room you just walked into is a forgotten place, isn't it? 'Why did I come in here again? I was just here.'" --Jay Leno
"Have you noticed, since oil prices went up, Dick Cheney hasn't had one heart attack?" --Jay Leno
11. With no photo IDs, nuns denied ballots in Indiana primary
At least 10 retired nuns in South Bend, Ind., were barred from voting in Tuesday's Indiana Democratic primary election because they lacked photo IDs required under a state law that the Supreme Court upheld last week.
John Borkowski, a South Bend lawyer volunteering as an election watchdog for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said several of the retired nuns had been voting all of their lives but were told they lacked the required identification cards and could only file provisional ballots. Greg Gordon 5.06.08 http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/36034.html
More about the Indiana law and its affect on voters is at http://www.kpbs.org/blogs2/index.php/politicalfix/comments/say_cheese_to_vote_the_high_court_decides/
12. McCain was for Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished Banner” before he was against it (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIrSNf0m7Q
13. Bush & Al Qaeda – By The Numbers
- 0 – Number of meetings held by Vice President Cheney’s counterterrorism task force (which was created in May 2001)
0 – References to Al Qaeda in Dr. Rice’s 2000 Foreign Affairs article listing Bush’s top foreign affairs priorities
0 – References to Al Qaeda in Secretary Rumsfeld 2001 memo outlining national security priorities
0 – References to terrorism is Justice Department's top seven goals for 2001
0 – Number of National Security Council meetings held by Bush administration before invasion of Iraq was discussed (i.e., it was discussed at the very first meeting)
1 – Number of times the Bush administration mentioned al Qaeda prior to 9-11. This was in a notice continuing an executive order issued by President Clinton.
1 – Number of hours President Bush and Vice President Cheney agreed to allow in their joint meeting with the 9-11 panel.
2 – Number of National Security Council meetings on terrorism prior to 9-11 (out of approximately 100).
More HERE
14. Flawed Wiring Kills G.I.’s
In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted. JAMES RISEN 5.04.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/middleeast/04electrocute.html
15. Anti-war, anti-Bush music downloads
For anti-war, anti-Bush music you can download go to http://www.topplebush.com/music.shtml
16. Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels
ADEN, Yemen -- Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials. Craig Whitlock 5.04.08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/03/AR2008050302047.html
17. Doubting the Evidence Against Iran
U.S. officials have aired accusations against Iran, insisting that Tehran is stoking Iraq's violence by keeping up a flow of money, weapons and trained fighters into the country. The Iraqi government, however, remains unconvinced — with good reason.
Indeed, the U.S. allegations appear to be based on speculation, spurred by the appearance about a year ago of a new breed of roadside bomb in Iraq. Explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, proved effective at piercing American armor by firing a concave copper disc from a makeshift cannon, which transformed the slug midair into a molten jet of super-heated metal. Accusations that Iran was shipping the things into Iraq grew louder as U.S. casualties from the weapon rose. But no concrete evidence has emerged in public that Iran was behind the weapons. U.S. officials have revealed no captured shipments of such devices and offered no other proof. MARK KUKIS AND ABIGAIL HAUSLOHNER 5.05.08 http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737543,00.html
18. Fact Check: Would raising the capital gains tax rate hit the middle class?
Answer: More than 80 percent of all capital gains income went to those making more than $200,000 a year in 2006. Very few making under $50,000 would be affected by any increase in the top capital gains rate. http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/would_raising_the_capital_gains_tax_rate.html
19. Shell firms shielded US contractor from taxes
In March 2005, one of the Pentagon's most trusted contractors - Virginia-based MPRI, founded by retired senior military leaders - won a $400 million contract to train police in Iraq and other hotspots. Two months later, MPRI set up a company in Bermuda to which it subcontracted much of the work.
Tax lawyers say that MPRI appears to be avoiding the payment of roughly $4 million dollars a year in Social Security and Medicare taxes for the police-training contract alone and is sidestepping scrutiny by hiring workers through offshore entities based outside the jurisdiction of the Internal Revenue Service. Farah Stockman 5.04.08 http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/05/04/shell_firms_shielded_us_contractor_from_taxes/
20. Contractors Gone Wild
Testimony earlier this week of three whistleblowers before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) stands out for the sheer outrageousness of their accusations—namely that U.S. private contractors looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for U.S. troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor. Bruce Falconer 5.02.08 http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/05/contractor-fraud-and-theft-in-iraq.html
21. Iraqi alleges Abu Ghraib torture, sues US contractors
An Iraqi man sued two U.S. military contractors, claiming he was repeatedly tortured while being held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for more than 10 months.
Emad Al-Janabi, 43, said he was detained by U.S. troops during a late-night raid in which he and his family were beaten by their captors. He said he was taken to a military base where he was stripped naked, a hood was placed on his head and his hands and legs were chained.
"They (U.S. troops) did not tell me what was the reason behind my arrest ... during the interrogation, the American soldier told me I was a terrorist ... and I was preparing for an attack against the U.S. forces," said al-Janabi, who denied the accusation and claims he was forced to give confessions under "savage" intimidation. GREG RISLING, 5.06.08 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_on_re_us/abu_ghraib_lawsuit
22. EPA official ousted while fighting Dow
SAGINAW, Mich. - The battle over dioxin contamination in this economically stressed region had been raging for years when Mary Gade, a top Bush administration official, turned up the pressure on Dow Chemical to clean it up.
Gade has been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil and sediment that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. The company dumped the highly toxic and persistent chemical into local rivers for most of the last century.
Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1. Michael Hawthorne 5.02.08 http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-epa-official-resigns_webmay02,0,4655733.story
23. Wall Street Winners Get Billion-Dollar Paydays
Combined, the top 50 hedge fund managers last year earned $29 billion. That figure represents the managers’ own pay and excludes the compensation of their employees. Five of the top 10, including Mr. Simons and Mr. Soros, were also at the top of the list for 2006. To compile its ranking, Alpha examined the funds’ returns and the fees that they charge investors, and then calculated the managers’ pay. JENNY ANDERSON 4.16.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16wall.html
24. House panel subpoenas top Cheney aide
The House Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to compel a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney to testify to the committee about the Bush administration's interrogation practices.
Addington is one of several lawyers believed to have played a key role in crafting the administration's interrogation policies shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, policies which some say amounted to torture. PAMELA HESS 5.06.08 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TORTURE_MEMO?SITE=AZTUS&SECTION=
HOME&TEMPLATE=newsnap.html&CTIME=2008-05-06-09-50-06
25. Freezing to show warming trend
In a country where many scientists scoff at the existence of global warming, Zimov has been waging a lonely campaign to warn the world about Russia's melting permafrost and its nexus with climate change. His laboratory is the vast expanse of tundra and larch forest along the East Siberian Sea, an icy corner of the world that Zimov has scrutinized almost entirely on his own for 28 years.
Among Zimov's findings: The release of greenhouse gases — particularly methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide—from thawing permafrost underneath Siberian lakes could accelerate global warming and represents an especially worrisome trend in the battle to slow climate change. Alex Rodriguez 5.05.08 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-siberia-loner_rodriguezmay05,0,7326792.story
26. McCain's "Spiritual Guide" Wants America to Destroy Islam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXZbIGJrDkg
27. 43,000 deployed unfit for combat
More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.
This reliance on troops found medically "non-deployable" is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say. Gregg Zoroya 5.08.08 http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080508/1a_lede08_dom.art.htm
28. White House tells court of missing emails from beginning of Iraq war
The White House has admitted in court that it has “lost” three months of email backups from the initial days of the Iraq war, raising questions about the possible deletion of politically sensitive records. 5.07.08 Elana Schor http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/07/usa.usforeignpolicy
29. Battle for Haditha
Read about “Battle for Haditha” at http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2008/05/08/haditha/index.html
Watch the trailer at http://0-a.mymovies.net/player/default.asp?TRID=3542&filmid=7139
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1. Mark Morford: 10 ways to blow your tax rebate
Here's the bad news: Your little recession-deflecting tax rebate? No rebate at all. Not even close.
It's more like this: You've been continuously mugged and beaten and robbed blind for the past seven years straight, and as you lay there on the cold, hard economic ground, bleeding and gasping and wondering what the hell happened to your vacation time and your health care plan and your mortgage payment, your attackers scoff and leer and toss a couple of bloodstained nickels on your pulverized face and mutter, here sucker, have some bus fare, and then they cackle and stomp away with all your loot and dignity and hope, back to the White House from whence they came.
What, too harsh? Not really. It's a lovely feeling, made even more sweetly ironic by the fact that Congress will likely soon shove through another $108 billion in war funds like a giant gallstone through our collective fiscal urethra. Right there, that's about 500 bucks for each and every adult human in America, baristas and Baptists and NASCAR fans alike.
Do you see? Your "economic stimulus" check is meaningless, an empty gesture, a trifling crumb of recompense after robbing you blind via insane gas prices, infrastructure meltdowns, massive failed wars that aren't really wars. Thanks for the bogus check, Dubya, now where can I buy a sliver of our missing national dignity? 5.02.08 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/05/02/notes050208.DTL&nl=fix
2. Alex Koppelman: It goes well beyond the Keating Five
When considering John McCain's history of unethical behavior, the list usually starts (and ends) with the Keating Five scandal in the 1980s, for which McCain was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee. In the aftermath, McCain helped improve his public image, and bury the scandal, by becoming an advocate of campaign-finance reform.
But the notion that McCain cleaned up his act may not be entirely true. Take, for example, Donald Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer and generous McCain contributor, who wanted some coastal land in California freed up by an Army base closing.
In this case McCain helped a wealthy and generous donor buy land from the Army -- complete with special water rights -- for a quarter of a million dollars, which McCain's buddy then sold two years later for $20 million. There's a term for this -- it's called "influence peddling," and it's exactly the kind of thing McCain swears he never gets involved with. 4.22.08 http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/22/diamond/
3. Thomas L. Friedman: Who Will Tell the People?
Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.
They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.
Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline. 5.04.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html
4. Nicholas D. Kristof : A Prison of Shame, and It’s Ours
My Times colleague Barry Bearak was imprisoned by the brutal regime in Zimbabwe last month. Barry was not beaten, but he was infected with scabies while in a bug-infested jail. He was finally brought before a court after four nights in jail and then released.
Alas, we don’t treat our own inmates in Guantánamo with even that much respect for law. On Thursday, America released Sami al-Hajj, a cameraman for Al Jazeera who had been held without charges for more than six years. Mr. Hajj has credibly alleged that he was beaten, and that he was punished for a hunger strike by having feeding tubes forcibly inserted in his nose and throat without lubricant, so as to rub tissue raw.
“Conditions in Guantánamo are very, very bad,” Mr. Hajj said in a televised interview from his hospital bed in Sudan, adding, “In Guantánamo, you have animals that are called iguanas ... that are treated with more humanity.”
Al Jazeera’s director general, Wadah Khanfar, said by telephone from the hospital that Mr. Hajj was so frail when he arrived that he had to be carried off the plane and into an ambulance. Guantánamo inmates are not allowed to see their families, so that evening Mr. Hajj met his 7-year-old son, whom he had last seen as a baby.
Reliable information is still scarce about Guantánamo, but increasingly we’re gaining glimpses of life there — and they are painful to read.
Both Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates have pushed to shut down Guantánamo because it undermines America’s standing and influence. They have been overruled by Dick Cheney and other hard-liners. In reality, it would take an exceptional enemy to damage America’s image and interests as much as President Bush and Mr. Cheney already have with Guantánamo. 5.04.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04kristof.html
Watch the BBC video at Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuJsCi_BiM0&eurl
5. Joan Vennochi: We're in a war - where are the media?
THE REAL NEWS of April played second fiddle to the presidential campaign, the pope's visit to America, and the Texas polygamy case.
The death toll for the US military in Iraq hit 49 in April, making it the deadliest month since September, according to the Associated Press. Around Iraq, at least 1,080 Iraqi civilians and security personnel were killed last month, an average of 36 a day, according to the AP tally. While that's down from March's total of 1,269, or an average of 41 per day, those casualties certainly don't add up to a stable Iraq.
But Iraq isn't getting the prominent play of other news topics. The latest statistics from the Project for Excellence in Journalism back up the conclusion that coverage of the Iraq war is on the decline.
Even as violence in Iraq increased, events on the ground in Iraq accounted for only 3 percent of news coverage, and the Iraq policy debate accounted for another 3 percent. 5.04.08 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/05/04/were_in_a_war___where_are_the_media/
6. Fareed Zakaria: Mccain Vs. Mccain
Amid the din of the dueling democrats, people seem to have forgotten about that other guy in the presidential race—you know, John McCain. McCain is said to be benefiting from this politically because his rivals are tearing each other apart. In fact, few people are paying much attention to what the Republican nominee is saying, or subjecting it to any serious scrutiny.
On March 26, McCain gave a speech on foreign policy in Los Angeles that was billed as his most comprehensive statement on the subject. It contained within it the most radical idea put forward by a major candidate for the presidency in 25 years. Yet almost no one noticed.
In his speech McCain proposed that the United States expel Russia from the G8, the group of advanced industrial countries. Moscow was included in this body in the 1990s to recognize and reward it for peacefully ending the cold war on Western terms, dismantling the Soviet empire and withdrawing from large chunks of the old Russian Empire as well. McCain also proposed that the United States should expand the G8 by taking in India and Brazil—but pointedly excluded China from the councils of power.
We have spent months debating Barack Obama's suggestion that he might, under some circumstances, meet with Iranians and Venezuelans. It is a sign of what is wrong with the foreign-policy debate that this idea is treated as a revolution in U.S. policy while McCain's proposal has barely registered. What McCain has announced is momentous—that the United States should adopt a policy of active exclusion and hostility toward two major global powers. It would reverse a decades-old bipartisan American policy of integrating these two countries into the global order, a policy that began under Richard Nixon (with Beijing) and continued under Ronald Reagan (with Moscow). It is a policy that would alienate many countries in Europe and Asia who would see it as an attempt by Washington to begin a new cold war. 5.05.08 Issue. http://www.newsweek.com/id/134317
7. Matthew Rothschild: Are We Numb to the Iraqi Victims of Bush’s War?
Here’s something I worry a lot about: that we, as Americans, are becoming numb to the violence our own government is committing over in Iraq.
Oh, we may have heard the stats on Iraqi civilians killed: anywhere now between 90,000 and around ten times that number.
Bush, of course, lowballed it about a year ago, saying it was around 30,000 and fobbed it off like it was nothing.
But we don’t often hear the real human stories behind these appallingly astronomical numbers.
And so we’re not appalled; we’re not even moved.
Maybe, just maybe, a story from over the weekend will wake us up a bit.
This was the story about the U.S. military dropping bombs right next to a hospital in Sadr City, Baghdad.
The bombing wounded about thirty people.
At a hospital.
“Doctors and nurses ran screaming as the blasts blew out hospital windows and shook the building,” Alissa Rubin reported for The New York Times.
And there’s one other damning detail that leaked out.
The U.S. bombing damaged all 17 of the hospital’s ambulances.
Ambulances?
Hitting a hospital and ambulances is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, but that hasn’t stopped Bush for one second. 5.05.08 http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx050508
8. James Carroll: The new immorality of Iraq war
INSANITY is defined as repeating one mistaken action again and again, each time expecting a better result that never comes. Prime example: the United States in Iraq. Washington perceived a weapons of mass destruction threat from Saddam Hussein, but instead of responding with diplomacy - internationally coordinated weapons inspections - it went to war. When Saddam Hussein was toppled, the initiative should have passed from the Pentagon to a State Department-led program of stabilization and reconstruction, but instead a crudely violent military occupation was begun. Diplomacy was once again rejected.
Today, the United States, fearing a geo-political setback that will undercut the broader "war on terror," is putting the diehard goal of military "victory" ahead of the diplomatic initiatives that alone can enable the reconstruction of Iraqi society. The needed spirit of cooperation among Iraqi factions, and from other nations, will never materialize as long as the United States pursues the fantasy that its armed might will at last prevail. Once again, diplomacy is being rejected in favor of war. This is insane. 5.05.08 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/05/05/the_new_immorality_of_iraq_war/
9. BOB HERBERT: Doing the Troops Wrong
At the top of the list of no-brainers in Washington should be Senator Jim Webb’s proposed expansion of education benefits for the men and women who have served in the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001.
It’s awfully hard to make the case that these young people who have sacrificed so much don’t deserve a shot at a better future once their wartime service has ended.
Who wouldn’t support an effort to pay for college for G.I.’s who have willingly suited up and put their lives on the line, who in many cases have served multiple tours in combat zones and in some cases have been wounded?
We did it for those who served in World War II. Why not now?
Well, you might be surprised at who is not supporting this effort. The Bush administration opposes it, and so does Senator John McCain. 5.06.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/opinion/06herbert.html
10. Paul Waldman: How Deep Is Your Love?
More and more, the current campaign, at least from the Republican side, is shaping up like pretty much like every other presidential campaign of the last forty years. You've got your lack of patriotism charges, your elitism charges, your race-baiting, your fear-mongering – all the carefully prepared dishes from the GOP campaign menu. The current target of the patriotism attacks is Barack Obama, but have no doubt that if Hillary Clinton is nominated these particular cannons will be quickly shifted in her direction -- you may have noticed that she does not wear a flag pin!
With a naïveté that might be charming if it did not have real consequences, many Democrats think that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain just has too much integrity to claim that his opponent is somehow less than truly American. Veteran Democratic consultant Jim Jordan, for instance, was quoted in Sunday's Washington Post speculating that John McCain might not "be the kind of man who would play this kind of dishonorable campaign against someone." But we don't have to wonder about whether McCain is too honorable to wield this attack, because he already has. 5.06.08 http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_deep__is__your_love
11. Bill Moyers reflects on his interview with Reverend Jeremiah Wright
Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.
Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers". 5.02.08 http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05022008/watch.html
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