As we wrote in our previous post, the God-Damned cowardly Democrats have NO EXCUSE for NOT making _SUPPORT OF OUR COMBAT WOUNDED TROOPS_ a NATIONAL, FRONT-PAGE ISSUE...
...the only reason they (the Senate Democrats) DON'T make a huge, national scandal of Bush-Cheney-GOP's treatment of the troops, is because the damn Senate Dems (like Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, etc) are SUBSERVIENT to the AIPAC agenda.... war now, tomorow, and forever in the Mideast.
This, needless to say, is a MAJOR BETRAYAL of EPIC PROPORTIONS... on the part of both the AIPAC lobby and the DLC/PNAC Democrats.
Fire Anyone Who Threatens Wounded Troops
Brent Budowsky
02.28.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brent-budowsky/fire-anyone-who-threatens_b_42337.html
I published an essay in The Hill today that will be read by many Senators and Members of Congress which aggressively condemns the treatment of troops and vets, and aggressively calls for action.
One of the most despicable aspects of the Walter Reed scandal is that wounded troops being abused feel threatened or intimidated, and are reluctant to speak out.
It is now reported that wounded troops are being warned not to talk to the media, and that major media organizations are being blocked from doing important stories.
Anyone who gives these orders should be fired on the spot if they hold civilian jobs, demoted if they hold uniformed jobs, and hauled before Congressional Committees immediately.
The treatment of our troops and vets is a national scandal and shame. Preventable casualties that Washington could have prevented but did not. Wounded troops treated shamefully. Underfunded local veterans care. Sickening delays receiving disability certification and grossly unfair treatment in many cases assigning disability levels. Homeless veterans. Inadequate care for PTSD and brain injury.
In this case the media is doing the job the President and Congress have not done, and to threaten troops if they bring attention their injustice is sickening, nauseating and unpatriotic.
The troops and vets should go to the head of the line and heads must roll for those who are responsibility.
I used strong language in my Op Ed for The Hill today, and strong action is mandatory, to help those who need help, to punish those who are responsible.
No American serving country and wounded in action should face one minute of threats or intimidation. Time for this to stop. Time for testimony under oath. Time for action.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
AIPAC-owned Dem Senate BETRAYS our troops....
Well, looks like we (your humble writers/editors) here at DemocraticNationUSA might have to fold up this particular website, and go back to COWARDLYdemocrats.com; because the Democratic "majority" in the US Senate is now a wholly-owned SUBSIDIARY of the AIPAC (America-Israel) lobby, to the point that all three Democratic presidential candidates from the senate would PREFER TO TALK TOUGH about IRAN (and thereby bolster the Cheney-Bush administration's saber-rattling and attack planning), than stand up for our COMBAT TROOPS STUCK IN IRAQ, much less returning wounded and traumatized veterans "warehoused" by the Cheney-Bush administration in substandard housing here in America, and often DENIED disability pay through fraudulent patient disability reports that under-report serious health issues.
AMERICA - no longer a "democracy", but a wholly owned subsidiary of the LOBBYISTS who run the military/defense industries, the AIPAC lobby, the oil, auto, and highway lobbies, and the corporate finance and media lobbies.... even to the point of our "OPPOSITION" party (NOT!) senators bending over backwards to HONOR A REPUBLICAN FILIBUSTER that supports a president and vice president with DISMAL 20-30% approval ratings and a laundry list of frauds, lies, deceptions, and illegal activities that, for want of only some fierce Democratic leadership, would drive those dismal administration approval ratings even lower.
ALL the above policy issues meet the TACIT APPROVAL of the AIPAC senators, particularily self-proclaimed Democratic "front runner" HILLARY CLINTON, and Dem/crossover Republican JOE LIEBERMAN:
MAKE NO MISTAKE: ALL the below issues are SLAM-DUNKS that the Democrats COULD, at any time in the past two-dozen months, have used to implement and sustain A FILIBUSTER - WITH POPULAR SUPPORT and APPROVAL - but the Dem "leadership" consistently REFUSES to go to bat for these important issues, ALLOWING the Bush White House to set the agenda and define their disourse (newpaper headlines and top-of-hour 'news' bites) -
- BECAUSE the Dem Senate SUBORDINATES ITSELF to the AIPAC agenda.
#1. Gulf coast post-Katrina reconstruction held hostage by Bush administration...
http://www.southernstudies.org/gulfwatch/
#2. Returning soldiers WAREHOUSED in appalling conditions... in downtown Washington, D.C, as AIPAC Senate Dems join the Washington Post in NOT "noticing" the conditions for veterans until.... Feb. 2007?!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html
#3. How US is Failing its war Veterans
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17316437/site/newsweek/
#4. US Military Capability Eroding according to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
(USMC) General Peter Pace
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070226/us-military-strains
#5. note: the above current AP story written by LOLITA BALDOR is backed up by this in-depth report
Fighting on Borrowed Time-
The Effect on US Military Readiness of America's post-9/11 Wars
by Carl Conetta, in which Lolita's July 2006 article "Army equipment costs TRIPLE due to Iraq, Afghanistan wars" is cited.
http://www.comw.org/pda/0609br19.html
"TRIPLE" equipment costs in an era when inflation, much less WAGES, is being held down, smells like "VICTORY! - War profits in the morning and around the clock!" as the AWOL senate pretends not to notice that Bush-Cheney foreign policy is STILL being driven by the PNAC and AIPAC neo-con fantasies.... fantasies that now demand use of 'tactical' nuclear weapons to make up for insufficient forces NOT able to "fully respond to yet another crisis." (#4. above citation)
========================================================
Dems' Me-Too Iran Talk
by Gareth Porter
Monday, Feb. 26, 2007
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0226-25.htm
As the Bush administration ratchets up its military threat to Iran, the leadership of the Democratic party is providing a free pass to continue on that potentially disastrous course. Congressional leaders have tacitly or explicitly accepted the necessity of keeping the “military option”—meaning a massive, unprovoked air attack on Iran—“on the table,” as have all three of the leading candidates for the party’s presidential nomination.
The Democratic leadership in Congress has defined the Iran issue only in terms of c ongressional prerogatives to declare war; none have seen fit to say that threatening Iran with an unprovoked attack is an unacceptable option.
Leading Democrats refuse to reject the option of aggressive war against Iran because they have bought into one of the central myths of the U.S. national security elite: that the U.S. must use its unchallenged military dominance to coerce Iran on uranium enrichment.
The three leading candidates in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination have all stated their support for continuing to consider the option of military attack. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., told the AIPAC annual convention at the end of January, “In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table.” Former senator John Edwards was even more vehement in a speech on Iran last month at the Herzliya Conference in Israel. “To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table,” he said, and then repeated the point for emphasis. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., appearing on “60 Minutes” recently, declared, “I think we should keep all options on the table.”
These Democrats act as though their support for keeping the military option alive—as opposed to supporting an actual attack on Iran—carries no risk, but that notion represents a profound misunderstanding of what it means to threaten aggressive war against Iran. In fact, keeping that threat “on the table” carries three very serious risks.
A war with Iran could be triggered by accidental or deliberate U.S. military provocation. To make the threat to Iran credible, the administration is deploying carrier task forces to the Persian Gulf, which inherently increases the likelihood that some U.S. naval commander will fire unnecessarily on an Iranian ship or plane. That is exactly what happened in 1988 when the cruiser USS Vincennes—apparently thanks to the aggressive tactics of its commander—shot down Iran Air Flight 655. That danger is especially acute given the provocative nature of the Bush administration's policy toward Iran.
Alternately, the administration may pursue a carefully calibrated strategy of combining a military buildup with increasingly warlike rhetoric, only to find that it has made Iran less, not more, willing to compromise. Even assuming that the White House has made no decision to attack Iran now, such a decision becomes far more likely once coercive diplomacy has been pursued and has failed.
Even if we are fortunate enough to dodge both of those bullets, coercive diplomacy carries the risk of tilting the political balance within Iran toward the actual manufacture of nuclear weapons. Contrary to the official Bush administration line, U.S. intelligence has long held that Iran’s policy toward the pursuit of nuclear weapons is significantly influenced by the U.S.'s policy toward Iran’s security concerns.
There are many indications of disagreement within the Iranian regime regarding whether to simply keep the nuclear option open or to move to production of nuclear weapons. The more imminent an attack by the U.S. appears, the more advocates of weapons production are likely to prevail.
The belief, in the face of all these risks, that keeping the military option open is sacrosanct is no political accident. It is one of the effects of U.S. military dominance over the rest of the world. The national debate is sharply tilted in the direction of those who want to exploit that advantage. Anyone calling for the renunciation of aggressive war can be accused of giving up the advantage of Iranian uncertainty.
Policymakers and political leaders tend to be seduced by the allure of dominance into believing that they can force weaker uncooperative states to do U.S. bidding. That was the fatal error of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, who believed U.S. military dominance over the Soviet Union and China could be used to successfully coerce North Vietnam regarding the guerrilla war in the South.
Similarly, the Bush administration expected that, once it had removed Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and established its regional military dominance, it would be able to coerce Iran and Syria. The debacle in Iraq set back its project in coercive diplomacy seriously, but has not shaken its belief that the Iranians will ultimately buckle under to the threat of war with the United States, combined with economic pressure from European and Japanese banks refusal to deal with Iranian clients.
Efforts to use U.S. military power as a coercive instrument have failed time and again and have had disastrous consequences, yet the notion that this strategy is advantageous remains a dominant political myth. The Democratic leadership has joined the Bush administration in succumbing to that myth. They need a crash course in the realities beneath the shiny allure of coercive diplomacy before it is too late.
Gareth Porter is a historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in June 2005.
© 2007 TomPaine.com (A Project of The Institute for America's Future)
AMERICA - no longer a "democracy", but a wholly owned subsidiary of the LOBBYISTS who run the military/defense industries, the AIPAC lobby, the oil, auto, and highway lobbies, and the corporate finance and media lobbies.... even to the point of our "OPPOSITION" party (NOT!) senators bending over backwards to HONOR A REPUBLICAN FILIBUSTER that supports a president and vice president with DISMAL 20-30% approval ratings and a laundry list of frauds, lies, deceptions, and illegal activities that, for want of only some fierce Democratic leadership, would drive those dismal administration approval ratings even lower.
ALL the above policy issues meet the TACIT APPROVAL of the AIPAC senators, particularily self-proclaimed Democratic "front runner" HILLARY CLINTON, and Dem/crossover Republican JOE LIEBERMAN:
MAKE NO MISTAKE: ALL the below issues are SLAM-DUNKS that the Democrats COULD, at any time in the past two-dozen months, have used to implement and sustain A FILIBUSTER - WITH POPULAR SUPPORT and APPROVAL - but the Dem "leadership" consistently REFUSES to go to bat for these important issues, ALLOWING the Bush White House to set the agenda and define their disourse (newpaper headlines and top-of-hour 'news' bites) -
- BECAUSE the Dem Senate SUBORDINATES ITSELF to the AIPAC agenda.
#1. Gulf coast post-Katrina reconstruction held hostage by Bush administration...
http://www.southernstudies.org/gulfwatch/
#2. Returning soldiers WAREHOUSED in appalling conditions... in downtown Washington, D.C, as AIPAC Senate Dems join the Washington Post in NOT "noticing" the conditions for veterans until.... Feb. 2007?!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html
#3. How US is Failing its war Veterans
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17316437/site/newsweek/
#4. US Military Capability Eroding according to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
(USMC) General Peter Pace
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070226/us-military-strains
#5. note: the above current AP story written by LOLITA BALDOR is backed up by this in-depth report
Fighting on Borrowed Time-
The Effect on US Military Readiness of America's post-9/11 Wars
by Carl Conetta, in which Lolita's July 2006 article "Army equipment costs TRIPLE due to Iraq, Afghanistan wars" is cited.
http://www.comw.org/pda/0609br19.html
"TRIPLE" equipment costs in an era when inflation, much less WAGES, is being held down, smells like "VICTORY! - War profits in the morning and around the clock!" as the AWOL senate pretends not to notice that Bush-Cheney foreign policy is STILL being driven by the PNAC and AIPAC neo-con fantasies.... fantasies that now demand use of 'tactical' nuclear weapons to make up for insufficient forces NOT able to "fully respond to yet another crisis." (#4. above citation)
========================================================
Dems' Me-Too Iran Talk
by Gareth Porter
Monday, Feb. 26, 2007
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0226-25.htm
As the Bush administration ratchets up its military threat to Iran, the leadership of the Democratic party is providing a free pass to continue on that potentially disastrous course. Congressional leaders have tacitly or explicitly accepted the necessity of keeping the “military option”—meaning a massive, unprovoked air attack on Iran—“on the table,” as have all three of the leading candidates for the party’s presidential nomination.
The Democratic leadership in Congress has defined the Iran issue only in terms of c ongressional prerogatives to declare war; none have seen fit to say that threatening Iran with an unprovoked attack is an unacceptable option.
Leading Democrats refuse to reject the option of aggressive war against Iran because they have bought into one of the central myths of the U.S. national security elite: that the U.S. must use its unchallenged military dominance to coerce Iran on uranium enrichment.
The three leading candidates in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination have all stated their support for continuing to consider the option of military attack. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., told the AIPAC annual convention at the end of January, “In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table.” Former senator John Edwards was even more vehement in a speech on Iran last month at the Herzliya Conference in Israel. “To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table,” he said, and then repeated the point for emphasis. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., appearing on “60 Minutes” recently, declared, “I think we should keep all options on the table.”
These Democrats act as though their support for keeping the military option alive—as opposed to supporting an actual attack on Iran—carries no risk, but that notion represents a profound misunderstanding of what it means to threaten aggressive war against Iran. In fact, keeping that threat “on the table” carries three very serious risks.
A war with Iran could be triggered by accidental or deliberate U.S. military provocation. To make the threat to Iran credible, the administration is deploying carrier task forces to the Persian Gulf, which inherently increases the likelihood that some U.S. naval commander will fire unnecessarily on an Iranian ship or plane. That is exactly what happened in 1988 when the cruiser USS Vincennes—apparently thanks to the aggressive tactics of its commander—shot down Iran Air Flight 655. That danger is especially acute given the provocative nature of the Bush administration's policy toward Iran.
Alternately, the administration may pursue a carefully calibrated strategy of combining a military buildup with increasingly warlike rhetoric, only to find that it has made Iran less, not more, willing to compromise. Even assuming that the White House has made no decision to attack Iran now, such a decision becomes far more likely once coercive diplomacy has been pursued and has failed.
Even if we are fortunate enough to dodge both of those bullets, coercive diplomacy carries the risk of tilting the political balance within Iran toward the actual manufacture of nuclear weapons. Contrary to the official Bush administration line, U.S. intelligence has long held that Iran’s policy toward the pursuit of nuclear weapons is significantly influenced by the U.S.'s policy toward Iran’s security concerns.
There are many indications of disagreement within the Iranian regime regarding whether to simply keep the nuclear option open or to move to production of nuclear weapons. The more imminent an attack by the U.S. appears, the more advocates of weapons production are likely to prevail.
The belief, in the face of all these risks, that keeping the military option open is sacrosanct is no political accident. It is one of the effects of U.S. military dominance over the rest of the world. The national debate is sharply tilted in the direction of those who want to exploit that advantage. Anyone calling for the renunciation of aggressive war can be accused of giving up the advantage of Iranian uncertainty.
Policymakers and political leaders tend to be seduced by the allure of dominance into believing that they can force weaker uncooperative states to do U.S. bidding. That was the fatal error of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, who believed U.S. military dominance over the Soviet Union and China could be used to successfully coerce North Vietnam regarding the guerrilla war in the South.
Similarly, the Bush administration expected that, once it had removed Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and established its regional military dominance, it would be able to coerce Iran and Syria. The debacle in Iraq set back its project in coercive diplomacy seriously, but has not shaken its belief that the Iranians will ultimately buckle under to the threat of war with the United States, combined with economic pressure from European and Japanese banks refusal to deal with Iranian clients.
Efforts to use U.S. military power as a coercive instrument have failed time and again and have had disastrous consequences, yet the notion that this strategy is advantageous remains a dominant political myth. The Democratic leadership has joined the Bush administration in succumbing to that myth. They need a crash course in the realities beneath the shiny allure of coercive diplomacy before it is too late.
Gareth Porter is a historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in June 2005.
© 2007 TomPaine.com (A Project of The Institute for America's Future)
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Israel to discuss US $2.4 billion aid package... "Discuss" how many millions go back to the US Congress as campaign donations....
Israel, U.S. to discuss new annual aid program
Reuters.com
Sun. 22 Feb 2007
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2007-02-25T130819Z_01_L25492674_RTRUKOC_0_US-ISRAEL-US-AID.xml&src=rss
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the United States will hold talks this week on formulating a new annual U.S. aid package, the Israeli Finance Ministry said on Sunday.
Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer and Finance Ministry Director-General Yarom Ariav will head the Israeli delegation to Washington. The Israeli team also will include senior officials from the Foreign Ministry and military.
Israel receives about $2.4 billion a year in mostly military aid from the United States. Most of
Reuters.com
Sun. 22 Feb 2007
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2007-02-25T130819Z_01_L25492674_RTRUKOC_0_US-ISRAEL-US-AID.xml&src=rss
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the United States will hold talks this week on formulating a new annual U.S. aid package, the Israeli Finance Ministry said on Sunday.
Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer and Finance Ministry Director-General Yarom Ariav will head the Israeli delegation to Washington. The Israeli team also will include senior officials from the Foreign Ministry and military.
Israel receives about $2.4 billion a year in mostly military aid from the United States. Most of
"Up to 5 Senior US Generals 'will quit' if Bush orders attack on Iran"... Dems need to STOP COWERING behind Repub filibuster and SUPPORT OUR MILITARY!
As we have written repeatedly here, the Democrats are COWERING behind the REPUBLICAN FILIBUSTER in the US Senate.
IF the MINORITY can OBSTRUCT THE BUSINESS of the ENTIRE US Senate - use the filibuster to shut down even debate - then certainly the MAJORITY PARTY has that SAME POWER - the power to tell the president, the minority party, and the press/media that NO FURTHER SENATE BUSINESS WILL BE CONDUCTED (effectively SHUTTING DOWN the US Congress) UNTIL the administration's disastrous conduct of the war is addressed in detail.
Democrats - FORBIDDEN from using the FILIBUSTER when they were in the minority...
Republicans - use that same FILIBUSTER power they recently threatened to dispense with entirely! (the "nuclear option")
- Cowering Democrats: DON'T EVEN DEMAND that the American press, media, and government INFORM American citizens that the FILIBUSTER is being used to OBSTRUCT the business of the US Senate!
UNDER THE COWARDLY "leadership" of the Senate Democrats, DEMOCRATIC VOTERS ARE SECOND CLASS CITIZENS! At every turn SUBSERVIENT to the Karl Rove/George Bush/Dick Cheney PROPAGANDA and OBSTRUCTION machine, from disenfranchised voters to fraudulent vote counts to the OBSTRUCTIONIST Republicans OBSTRUCTING even DEBATE about the Iraq war in the US senate.
The LEAST the Democrats can do is provide VOCAL SUPPORT to the Generals who fear a Bush-Cheney directed EXPANSION OF US WARS into Iran!
(but the Democrats of the Senate are also SUBSERVIENT to the AIPAC-Isreal lobby, including Hillary, Biden, & Feinstein, and the Israel lobby is in a fervor for war in Iran - even to the point of cooperating with the Saudis! Senator Lieberman is a "Democrat" in name only, he is actually a Republican in supporting unlimited Bush-Cheney powers to undercut American constitutional law in pursuit of unlimited war powers.)
---------------------------------------------
US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack
Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Washington
From The Sunday Times
February 25, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1434540.ece
SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”
A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.
The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran”.
Iran ignored a United Nations deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment programme last week. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that his country “will not withdraw from its nuclear stances even one single step”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs a year, although Tehran claims its programme is purely for civilian energy purposes.
Nicholas Burns, the top US negotiator, is to meet British, French, German, Chinese and Russian officials in London tomorrow to discuss additional penalties against Iran. But UN diplomats cautioned that further measures would take weeks to agree and would be mild at best.
A second US navy aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS John C Stennis arrived in the Gulf last week, doubling the US presence there. Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet, warned: “The US will take military action if ships are attacked or if countries in the region are targeted or US troops come under direct attack.”
But General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said recently there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran. He played down claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive.
Pace’s view was backed up by British intelligence officials who said the extent of the Iranian government’s involvement in activities inside Iraq by a small number of Revolutionary Guards was “far from clear”.
Hillary Mann, the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace’s repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign of grave discontent at the top.
“He is a very serious and a very loyal soldier,” she said. “It is extraordinary for him to have made these comments publicly, and it suggests there are serious problems between the White House, the National Security Council and the Pentagon.”
Mann fears the administration is seeking to provoke Iran into a reaction that could be used as an excuse for an attack. A British official said the US navy was well aware of the risks of confrontation and was being “seriously careful” in the Gulf.
The US air force is regarded as being more willing to attack Iran. General Michael Moseley, the head of the air force, cited Iran as the main likely target for American aircraft at a military conference earlier this month.
According to a report in The New Yorker magazine, the Pentagon has already set up a working group to plan airstrikes on Iran. The panel initially focused on destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been instructed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq.
However, army chiefs fear an attack on Iran would backfire on American troops in Iraq and lead to more terrorist attacks, a rise in oil prices and the threat of a regional war.
Britain is concerned that its own troops in Iraq might be drawn into any American conflict with Iran, regardless of whether the government takes part in the attack.
One retired general who participated in the “generals’ revolt” against Donald Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war said he hoped his former colleagues would resign in the event of an order to attack. “We don’t want to take another initiative unless we’ve really thought through the consequences of our strategy,” he warned.
IF the MINORITY can OBSTRUCT THE BUSINESS of the ENTIRE US Senate - use the filibuster to shut down even debate - then certainly the MAJORITY PARTY has that SAME POWER - the power to tell the president, the minority party, and the press/media that NO FURTHER SENATE BUSINESS WILL BE CONDUCTED (effectively SHUTTING DOWN the US Congress) UNTIL the administration's disastrous conduct of the war is addressed in detail.
Democrats - FORBIDDEN from using the FILIBUSTER when they were in the minority...
Republicans - use that same FILIBUSTER power they recently threatened to dispense with entirely! (the "nuclear option")
- Cowering Democrats: DON'T EVEN DEMAND that the American press, media, and government INFORM American citizens that the FILIBUSTER is being used to OBSTRUCT the business of the US Senate!
UNDER THE COWARDLY "leadership" of the Senate Democrats, DEMOCRATIC VOTERS ARE SECOND CLASS CITIZENS! At every turn SUBSERVIENT to the Karl Rove/George Bush/Dick Cheney PROPAGANDA and OBSTRUCTION machine, from disenfranchised voters to fraudulent vote counts to the OBSTRUCTIONIST Republicans OBSTRUCTING even DEBATE about the Iraq war in the US senate.
The LEAST the Democrats can do is provide VOCAL SUPPORT to the Generals who fear a Bush-Cheney directed EXPANSION OF US WARS into Iran!
(but the Democrats of the Senate are also SUBSERVIENT to the AIPAC-Isreal lobby, including Hillary, Biden, & Feinstein, and the Israel lobby is in a fervor for war in Iran - even to the point of cooperating with the Saudis! Senator Lieberman is a "Democrat" in name only, he is actually a Republican in supporting unlimited Bush-Cheney powers to undercut American constitutional law in pursuit of unlimited war powers.)
---------------------------------------------
US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack
Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Washington
From The Sunday Times
February 25, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1434540.ece
SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”
A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.
The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran”.
Iran ignored a United Nations deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment programme last week. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that his country “will not withdraw from its nuclear stances even one single step”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs a year, although Tehran claims its programme is purely for civilian energy purposes.
Nicholas Burns, the top US negotiator, is to meet British, French, German, Chinese and Russian officials in London tomorrow to discuss additional penalties against Iran. But UN diplomats cautioned that further measures would take weeks to agree and would be mild at best.
A second US navy aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS John C Stennis arrived in the Gulf last week, doubling the US presence there. Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet, warned: “The US will take military action if ships are attacked or if countries in the region are targeted or US troops come under direct attack.”
But General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said recently there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran. He played down claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive.
Pace’s view was backed up by British intelligence officials who said the extent of the Iranian government’s involvement in activities inside Iraq by a small number of Revolutionary Guards was “far from clear”.
Hillary Mann, the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace’s repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign of grave discontent at the top.
“He is a very serious and a very loyal soldier,” she said. “It is extraordinary for him to have made these comments publicly, and it suggests there are serious problems between the White House, the National Security Council and the Pentagon.”
Mann fears the administration is seeking to provoke Iran into a reaction that could be used as an excuse for an attack. A British official said the US navy was well aware of the risks of confrontation and was being “seriously careful” in the Gulf.
The US air force is regarded as being more willing to attack Iran. General Michael Moseley, the head of the air force, cited Iran as the main likely target for American aircraft at a military conference earlier this month.
According to a report in The New Yorker magazine, the Pentagon has already set up a working group to plan airstrikes on Iran. The panel initially focused on destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been instructed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq.
However, army chiefs fear an attack on Iran would backfire on American troops in Iraq and lead to more terrorist attacks, a rise in oil prices and the threat of a regional war.
Britain is concerned that its own troops in Iraq might be drawn into any American conflict with Iran, regardless of whether the government takes part in the attack.
One retired general who participated in the “generals’ revolt” against Donald Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war said he hoped his former colleagues would resign in the event of an order to attack. “We don’t want to take another initiative unless we’ve really thought through the consequences of our strategy,” he warned.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Scott Hill captures the essence of Democrats COWARDLY, WHINING servility to the president with the 20% approval rating..
(sigh) Scott Hill's essay (at HuffingtonPost.com) reminds us, that our previous blog was called "COWARDLYdemocrats.blogspot.com" (it's still running if no longer current.... give it a visit to see the archives of Dem servility), and the only reason we changed our posting to this new site - DemocraticNationUSA - was because we hoped that the new Congress this January would CHANGE THINGS, and put the Bush-Cheney White House on the DEFENSIVE as much as they (Bush and Cheney) like to put American heroes - Amassador Wilson, 9-11 victims, anthrax victims, torture, spying, & other whistleblowers, taxpayers, our combat troops, and especially our returning combat-wounded and traumatized veterans.... ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK.
Instead, we have Democrats acting just like Rethuglicans: WORRYING ABOUT RAISING MONEY and catching "good press," which is to say toeing the Washington/New York/'red state' media CONVENTIONAL WISDOM.
FIRST THING, the Democrats SHOULD BE EXPRESSING OUTRAGE that the "LEAKING" of an undercover CIA operative (and her ENTIRE COVER ORGANIZATION) not only originated within the Cheney-Bush White House, but WAS A PREMEDITATED EFFORT to SMEAR an outspoken war critic (Ambassador Wilson), by ILLEGALLY "OUTING" an undercover CIA operative who WAS UNKNOWN to America and the world UNTIL Vice President DICK CHENEY made a CONCERTED EFFORT to make her name - Valerie Plame Wilson - as commonly known as that of Monica Lewinsky!
THAT is arguably A CRIME DEMANDING IMPEACHMENT, but the COWARDLY, SERVILE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO MAKE THAT ARGUMENT, preferring instead to DITHER (and thus do NOTHING) about the Iraq war.
DEMOCRATS.... YOU DO NOT HAVE TO COME UP WITH THE PERFECT SOLUTION TO THE IRAQ madhouse! YOU SIMPLY HAVE TO make the case to the 30% of the American people who still support Bush and Cheney that the President and Vice President have BETRAYED THE TRUST (and shown monumental arrogance, incompetence, if not outright stupidity) OF THOSE THEY HAVE POURED INTO THE Iraq war like canon fodder.
From having American GIs do KP duty as looters and insurgents carted off TONS and TONS and TONS of munitions from Al Qaaqa and other of Saddam's ammunition complexes, to HUMILIATING General Shinseki when he demanded TRIPLE the number of combat troops for the invasion, to NOT EVEN PLANNING for the occupation...
IS THERE NOTHING the stupid, cowering Democrat "leadership" (especially that in the Senate) WONT' BETRAY - the rule of law and leadership of America's national security in particular - to keep their perks, privileges, and campaign dollars rolling in????
Damn DEMOCRATS, STOP taking your orders from Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, George W. Bush, and the 50 Senators (including JOE LIEBERMAN) who support them! The former two - Cheney and Rove - SHOULD BE IN CUSTODY for their roles in the ILLEGAL OUTING of an undercover CIA operative, and the president should be under IMPEACHMENT for PERJURY, bold-faced lying when he told the American people he would fire ANYONE involved in the "OUTING" of an undercover CIA agent, when in fact Cheney and Rove worked on exactly that task at HIS INSISTENCE.
Again, Democrats ARE TAKING THEIR ORDERS from the Bush-Cheney-Libby fax machine; PRETENDING that Valerie Plame was NOT UNDERCOVER as their rational for NOT PROCEEDING WITH IMPEACHMENT, and NOT using their own MAJORITY filibuster to SHUT DOWN CONGRESS until the Republican Senators play ball.
===========================================
Democrats, Admit It: We're Idiots
Scott Thill
02.23.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-thill/democrats-admit-it-wer_b_41980.html
Every morning we get up and hear the same news over and over again, usually centering on one of two things: The Bush administration's could-give-a-fuck economic campaign to destroy civil liberties at home and abroad, and the Democrats utter inability to do anything of substance about it.
And while it has been a terrorizing streak, it has been easy to nail down, mostly because the too-white Republicans, the vice-president who runs the country and the puppet president who runs the liquor cabinet could care less about being accused of sheer hypocrisy. This is, after all, an administration that can't stop crowing about how much they support the maimed troops rotting away at Walter Reed, even as they send more off to die. An administration that warns us daily about the threat of Middle East terrorism while they sell our ports off to Dubai and inflame sectarian wars across the Iraq, Iran and, well, everywhere. An administration who says they'll fire anyone for compromising the national security of the nation, unless of course it's one of their own that does it, in which case they'll do nothing at all, so go fuck yourselves.
But then there are the sad-sack Democrats, who voters across the country in a fit of rage gave the keys to Congress and were rewarded with half-assed nonbinding resolutions that couldn't even make it past the Senate. And that's after they crowed about all they were going to do in 100 hours. After that? You're on your own suckers!
Why? Well for starters, Clinton and Obama have another whiny bitchfest on the docket, an election to plan for, and other non-essential extracurricular activities to attend to, all while those same soldiers rot away inside Walter Reed because of the war their sorry ilk rubber-stamped. Meanwhile, the jackass Joe Lieberman they thought would help Gore win the 2000 election ended up turning heel and finally becoming the worthless Republican we all knew he was. And they say Nader cost us the 2000 election. The fucking gall.
Is it any wonder the Bush administration steamrolled right over these pussies while implementing a PNAC plan for energy domination disguised as a urgent need to disarm a country we already knew had no WMD? Is it any wonder that these same losers now look back in anger at their 2002 War Authorization red carpet, not because it was wrong or stupid or easily damned, but because it might cost them an election in 2008?
And so it is without a hint of irony whatsoever that John Kerry, a grandfather clock on its last pendulum swing, recently complained in the Washington Post that he has "had enough of nonbinding" resolutions, or that the Democrats next chowderheaded chess move is to repeal that 2002 megablunder, five years and thousands of corpses too late. And sure, better late than never, but never is really what you get with the Democrats in this barely born new millennium. All it takes is one scan near the bottom of the Post's piece on the repeal to smack the optimists upside the head with a hyperreality check:
"More important, the legislation may include a waiver that the president or defense secretary could invoke to deploy troops who are not fully combat-ready, Democratic aides said. That way, the commander in chief's hands would not be tied."
Well, I feel better already. I'm sure the voters who turned out en masse to collectively call bullshit on the reign of Cheney and Bush the crashing buffoon want nothing more than their hands to be free to wreak even more havoc on the world, at the nation's expense. And what an expense: According to McClatchy, "The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's 'haves' and 'have-nots' continues to widen."
Think about that: A 32-year high. At the beginning of this administration's reign, we had an economic surplus. Ever since the Democrats enabled this thieving band of corporate criminals, we've moved it into Exxon and Halliburton's pockets and screwed everyone else in the process. Look, the comb-licking Paul Wolfowitz is on his way back to Iraq right now, coming back into the fold like the neocon prodigal son we all knew he was. And just what do you think he's going to do when he gets there? What else? Ask the Government Accountability Project:
"'This is exactly what he shouldn't be doing and what the [World Bank] board was initially afraid that he would do, which is to use the financial resources of the World Bank to take some of the heat off the U.S. Treasury and U.S. policy,' Bea Edwards of the Washington-based watchdog group Government Accountability Project told IPS. In a previous statement, Edwards argued that 'Wolfowitz's apparent determination to use the World Bank to further questionable American military goals in the Middle East is a fundamental distortion of the Bank's mission, a violation of its founding Articles of Agreement, and a reckless waste of donor resources.'"
And so another day passes, and the sea levels rise higher than expected. Exponology goes into overdrive, and the grift goes on. Meanwhile, the Democrats decide to use what precious time we have left on this planet to revisit a monumental fuck-up that happened years ago, in another lifetime practially, when they decided to rely on the national intelligence rather than their own.
I may be relatively young, but I've been a political animal since I could talk. And I have never been as ashamed of my country, my party or my politicians in my entire life. And you should be too, whether you're in on the grift or not. So I'm asking you to do something about it. Go Howard Beale on these mutherfuckers. Prank them, spank them, Sherman tank them, but do not sit idly by anymore while they ruin what wondrous possibility is left in this country as climate change encroaches and liars breed like roaches. This country talks the talk, but will it walk the walk? Is it truly for the people, by the people? Or is it another Rome, whose spectacular fall is mere seconds away, lost in a soup of hyperreal distraction? You decide.
Instead, we have Democrats acting just like Rethuglicans: WORRYING ABOUT RAISING MONEY and catching "good press," which is to say toeing the Washington/New York/'red state' media CONVENTIONAL WISDOM.
FIRST THING, the Democrats SHOULD BE EXPRESSING OUTRAGE that the "LEAKING" of an undercover CIA operative (and her ENTIRE COVER ORGANIZATION) not only originated within the Cheney-Bush White House, but WAS A PREMEDITATED EFFORT to SMEAR an outspoken war critic (Ambassador Wilson), by ILLEGALLY "OUTING" an undercover CIA operative who WAS UNKNOWN to America and the world UNTIL Vice President DICK CHENEY made a CONCERTED EFFORT to make her name - Valerie Plame Wilson - as commonly known as that of Monica Lewinsky!
THAT is arguably A CRIME DEMANDING IMPEACHMENT, but the COWARDLY, SERVILE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO MAKE THAT ARGUMENT, preferring instead to DITHER (and thus do NOTHING) about the Iraq war.
DEMOCRATS.... YOU DO NOT HAVE TO COME UP WITH THE PERFECT SOLUTION TO THE IRAQ madhouse! YOU SIMPLY HAVE TO make the case to the 30% of the American people who still support Bush and Cheney that the President and Vice President have BETRAYED THE TRUST (and shown monumental arrogance, incompetence, if not outright stupidity) OF THOSE THEY HAVE POURED INTO THE Iraq war like canon fodder.
From having American GIs do KP duty as looters and insurgents carted off TONS and TONS and TONS of munitions from Al Qaaqa and other of Saddam's ammunition complexes, to HUMILIATING General Shinseki when he demanded TRIPLE the number of combat troops for the invasion, to NOT EVEN PLANNING for the occupation...
IS THERE NOTHING the stupid, cowering Democrat "leadership" (especially that in the Senate) WONT' BETRAY - the rule of law and leadership of America's national security in particular - to keep their perks, privileges, and campaign dollars rolling in????
Damn DEMOCRATS, STOP taking your orders from Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, George W. Bush, and the 50 Senators (including JOE LIEBERMAN) who support them! The former two - Cheney and Rove - SHOULD BE IN CUSTODY for their roles in the ILLEGAL OUTING of an undercover CIA operative, and the president should be under IMPEACHMENT for PERJURY, bold-faced lying when he told the American people he would fire ANYONE involved in the "OUTING" of an undercover CIA agent, when in fact Cheney and Rove worked on exactly that task at HIS INSISTENCE.
Again, Democrats ARE TAKING THEIR ORDERS from the Bush-Cheney-Libby fax machine; PRETENDING that Valerie Plame was NOT UNDERCOVER as their rational for NOT PROCEEDING WITH IMPEACHMENT, and NOT using their own MAJORITY filibuster to SHUT DOWN CONGRESS until the Republican Senators play ball.
===========================================
Democrats, Admit It: We're Idiots
Scott Thill
02.23.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-thill/democrats-admit-it-wer_b_41980.html
Every morning we get up and hear the same news over and over again, usually centering on one of two things: The Bush administration's could-give-a-fuck economic campaign to destroy civil liberties at home and abroad, and the Democrats utter inability to do anything of substance about it.
And while it has been a terrorizing streak, it has been easy to nail down, mostly because the too-white Republicans, the vice-president who runs the country and the puppet president who runs the liquor cabinet could care less about being accused of sheer hypocrisy. This is, after all, an administration that can't stop crowing about how much they support the maimed troops rotting away at Walter Reed, even as they send more off to die. An administration that warns us daily about the threat of Middle East terrorism while they sell our ports off to Dubai and inflame sectarian wars across the Iraq, Iran and, well, everywhere. An administration who says they'll fire anyone for compromising the national security of the nation, unless of course it's one of their own that does it, in which case they'll do nothing at all, so go fuck yourselves.
But then there are the sad-sack Democrats, who voters across the country in a fit of rage gave the keys to Congress and were rewarded with half-assed nonbinding resolutions that couldn't even make it past the Senate. And that's after they crowed about all they were going to do in 100 hours. After that? You're on your own suckers!
Why? Well for starters, Clinton and Obama have another whiny bitchfest on the docket, an election to plan for, and other non-essential extracurricular activities to attend to, all while those same soldiers rot away inside Walter Reed because of the war their sorry ilk rubber-stamped. Meanwhile, the jackass Joe Lieberman they thought would help Gore win the 2000 election ended up turning heel and finally becoming the worthless Republican we all knew he was. And they say Nader cost us the 2000 election. The fucking gall.
Is it any wonder the Bush administration steamrolled right over these pussies while implementing a PNAC plan for energy domination disguised as a urgent need to disarm a country we already knew had no WMD? Is it any wonder that these same losers now look back in anger at their 2002 War Authorization red carpet, not because it was wrong or stupid or easily damned, but because it might cost them an election in 2008?
And so it is without a hint of irony whatsoever that John Kerry, a grandfather clock on its last pendulum swing, recently complained in the Washington Post that he has "had enough of nonbinding" resolutions, or that the Democrats next chowderheaded chess move is to repeal that 2002 megablunder, five years and thousands of corpses too late. And sure, better late than never, but never is really what you get with the Democrats in this barely born new millennium. All it takes is one scan near the bottom of the Post's piece on the repeal to smack the optimists upside the head with a hyperreality check:
"More important, the legislation may include a waiver that the president or defense secretary could invoke to deploy troops who are not fully combat-ready, Democratic aides said. That way, the commander in chief's hands would not be tied."
Well, I feel better already. I'm sure the voters who turned out en masse to collectively call bullshit on the reign of Cheney and Bush the crashing buffoon want nothing more than their hands to be free to wreak even more havoc on the world, at the nation's expense. And what an expense: According to McClatchy, "The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's 'haves' and 'have-nots' continues to widen."
Think about that: A 32-year high. At the beginning of this administration's reign, we had an economic surplus. Ever since the Democrats enabled this thieving band of corporate criminals, we've moved it into Exxon and Halliburton's pockets and screwed everyone else in the process. Look, the comb-licking Paul Wolfowitz is on his way back to Iraq right now, coming back into the fold like the neocon prodigal son we all knew he was. And just what do you think he's going to do when he gets there? What else? Ask the Government Accountability Project:
"'This is exactly what he shouldn't be doing and what the [World Bank] board was initially afraid that he would do, which is to use the financial resources of the World Bank to take some of the heat off the U.S. Treasury and U.S. policy,' Bea Edwards of the Washington-based watchdog group Government Accountability Project told IPS. In a previous statement, Edwards argued that 'Wolfowitz's apparent determination to use the World Bank to further questionable American military goals in the Middle East is a fundamental distortion of the Bank's mission, a violation of its founding Articles of Agreement, and a reckless waste of donor resources.'"
And so another day passes, and the sea levels rise higher than expected. Exponology goes into overdrive, and the grift goes on. Meanwhile, the Democrats decide to use what precious time we have left on this planet to revisit a monumental fuck-up that happened years ago, in another lifetime practially, when they decided to rely on the national intelligence rather than their own.
I may be relatively young, but I've been a political animal since I could talk. And I have never been as ashamed of my country, my party or my politicians in my entire life. And you should be too, whether you're in on the grift or not. So I'm asking you to do something about it. Go Howard Beale on these mutherfuckers. Prank them, spank them, Sherman tank them, but do not sit idly by anymore while they ruin what wondrous possibility is left in this country as climate change encroaches and liars breed like roaches. This country talks the talk, but will it walk the walk? Is it truly for the people, by the people? Or is it another Rome, whose spectacular fall is mere seconds away, lost in a soup of hyperreal distraction? You decide.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Hillary and Joe... Lieberman threatens treachery again, undermines Dems, supports Cheney-Bush. Hillary HELPED make this happen....
OK, perhaps its unfair to lay JOE LIEBERMAN's chronic treachery - emboldening the Bush-Cheney assault on democracy, serially trying to undercut the Democrat's ability to reign in same - at the feet of HILLARY CLINTON.
BUT! Hillary has pretensions of being the leader of America, and (thus) being the leader of the free world. And in case Hillary hasn't noticed, THE GREATEST THREAT to America is the ruinous right-wing leadership of the Bush-Cheney administration: the ones who did NOTHING in the way of retribution against Al Qaida for the USS Cole attack in October of 2000 (while Bush and his "foreign policy experts" were all on the campaign trail, and presumably aware of Al Qaida's murderous attack on a US military ship); the ones who did NOTHING to make a massive, coordinated hijacking even a LITTLE MORE DIFFICULT in the summer of 2001; the ones who did NOTHING to capture the Anthrax attackers; the ones who did NOTHING to warn New York post-9-11 recovery responders of the toxins in the air they were breathing; the ones who did NOTHING to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora, the ones who did NOTHING to SECURE SADDAM's AMMUNITION COMPLEXES, thereby GIVING thieves and insurgents TONS and TONS and TONS of munitions and high-explosives on a silver platter - under the gaze of US reconnaissance satellites, even! The Bush-Cheney White House were also the ones who PROMOTED THE TORTURE GENERALS, (Miller, Fast, and others) and brought the infamous "Guantanamo" torture/abuse/sensory deprivation methods from the US prison in Guantanamo to Iraq and Afghanistan, while runing kangaroo courts for only privates and low-level enlisted men and women, thereby giving America's reputation a huge black mark in the eyes of the world
In supporting the Bush-Cheney White House conduct of the war, JOE LIEBERMAN also helps to DISENFRANCHISE those citizens in New Orleans who have been LEFT IN THE MUD by the Bush administration's appalling 'reconstruction' priorities... which fail to include an overall environmental master plan, so communities and businesses could better plan their own reconstruction strategies, which they are currently unable to do.
Now all of this would be hard to lay at the feet of HILLARY CLINTON..... EXCEPT that her close political advisor JAMES CARVILLE recently blasted DNC Chairman Howard Dean for, in Carville's fervid imagination, "HOARDING" cash in the last hours of mid-term election 2006, cash that could, the ragin' Carville sputtered, have won a few more close races for the Democrats that critical November Tuesday. BUT on closer inspection Carville's raging was doubly troubling... for it wasn't CASH in the DNC's treasury that Carville was so incensed that Dean DIDN'T spend.. it was a CREDIT LINE at the DNC headquarters. Meanwhile... WHO WAS sitting on a pile of cash that last crucial week of October 2006??
- Why, NONE OTHER THAN HILLARY CLINTON, THE go-to gal from AIPAC! (Which, given the Boxers and Feinsteins in Congress, is saying a lot.) Cleary AIPAC was behind the reelection campaign of Joe Lieberman, just as they were behind the reelection campaign of HILLARY CLINTON. And, _IF_ Hillary Clinton had been A LEADER of the "DEMOCRATIC PARTY," SHE COULD HAVE PUT MORE EFFORT - and money - into the election campaign of the Connecticut DEMOCRATIC senate candidate, NED LAMONT!
But NO.... as Clinton friend James Carville has so happily (if inadvertently) pointed out for us, Hillary SAT ON HER CASH in the late days of election 2006 (having wrapped up a safe, overwhelming majority in New York), she did VERY LITTLE to support the Ned Lamont campaign... and thus has, we now see clearly, helped to UNDERMINE THE SENATE MAJORITY only 3 or 4 or 5 weeks after the Democrats regained that majority in the US Senate!
GOOD GOING, HILLARY! Is THIS the template for your future "leadership" - HELP the Republicans retain DOMINANT CONTROL OVER all THE ISSUES and AGENDAS the US senate is "ALLOWED" to discuss?
Hillary Clinton - Taking her MARCHING ORDERS from JOE LIEBERMAN, AIPAC, the REPUBLICAN MINORITY, and thus KARL ROVE's (and Dick Cheney's) FAX MACHINE.
Only 4 weeks after the Democrats majority of the senate has proven to be a paper tiger, Hillary's "LEADERSHIP" looks even more sad, pathetic, and formless than John Kerry's in 2004.
================================================
Lieberman Says War Vote Could Prompt Party Switch
By: Carrie Budoff
February 22, 2007
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2865.html
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., left to right, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speak about Iraq on Capitol Hill, Feb. 1, 2007, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq might change his mind.
Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of the war and President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 combat troops into Iraq to help quell the violence there.
"I have no desire to change parties," Lieberman said in a telephone interview. "If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don't feel comfortable with."
Asked whether that hasn't already happened with Iraq, Lieberman said: "We will see how that plays out in the coming months," specifically how the party approaches the issue of continued funding for the war.
More Info
For continuing coverage of this story visit The Crypt.
He suggested, however, that the forthcoming showdown over new funding could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the Republican Party.
"I hope we don't get to that point," Lieberman said. "That's about all I will say on it today. That would hurt."
Republicans have long targeted Lieberman to switch – a move that would give them control of the Senate. And Time magazine is set to report Friday that there is a “remote” chance Lieberman would join the GOP.
BUT! Hillary has pretensions of being the leader of America, and (thus) being the leader of the free world. And in case Hillary hasn't noticed, THE GREATEST THREAT to America is the ruinous right-wing leadership of the Bush-Cheney administration: the ones who did NOTHING in the way of retribution against Al Qaida for the USS Cole attack in October of 2000 (while Bush and his "foreign policy experts" were all on the campaign trail, and presumably aware of Al Qaida's murderous attack on a US military ship); the ones who did NOTHING to make a massive, coordinated hijacking even a LITTLE MORE DIFFICULT in the summer of 2001; the ones who did NOTHING to capture the Anthrax attackers; the ones who did NOTHING to warn New York post-9-11 recovery responders of the toxins in the air they were breathing; the ones who did NOTHING to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora, the ones who did NOTHING to SECURE SADDAM's AMMUNITION COMPLEXES, thereby GIVING thieves and insurgents TONS and TONS and TONS of munitions and high-explosives on a silver platter - under the gaze of US reconnaissance satellites, even! The Bush-Cheney White House were also the ones who PROMOTED THE TORTURE GENERALS, (Miller, Fast, and others) and brought the infamous "Guantanamo" torture/abuse/sensory deprivation methods from the US prison in Guantanamo to Iraq and Afghanistan, while runing kangaroo courts for only privates and low-level enlisted men and women, thereby giving America's reputation a huge black mark in the eyes of the world
In supporting the Bush-Cheney White House conduct of the war, JOE LIEBERMAN also helps to DISENFRANCHISE those citizens in New Orleans who have been LEFT IN THE MUD by the Bush administration's appalling 'reconstruction' priorities... which fail to include an overall environmental master plan, so communities and businesses could better plan their own reconstruction strategies, which they are currently unable to do.
Now all of this would be hard to lay at the feet of HILLARY CLINTON..... EXCEPT that her close political advisor JAMES CARVILLE recently blasted DNC Chairman Howard Dean for, in Carville's fervid imagination, "HOARDING" cash in the last hours of mid-term election 2006, cash that could, the ragin' Carville sputtered, have won a few more close races for the Democrats that critical November Tuesday. BUT on closer inspection Carville's raging was doubly troubling... for it wasn't CASH in the DNC's treasury that Carville was so incensed that Dean DIDN'T spend.. it was a CREDIT LINE at the DNC headquarters. Meanwhile... WHO WAS sitting on a pile of cash that last crucial week of October 2006??
- Why, NONE OTHER THAN HILLARY CLINTON, THE go-to gal from AIPAC! (Which, given the Boxers and Feinsteins in Congress, is saying a lot.) Cleary AIPAC was behind the reelection campaign of Joe Lieberman, just as they were behind the reelection campaign of HILLARY CLINTON. And, _IF_ Hillary Clinton had been A LEADER of the "DEMOCRATIC PARTY," SHE COULD HAVE PUT MORE EFFORT - and money - into the election campaign of the Connecticut DEMOCRATIC senate candidate, NED LAMONT!
But NO.... as Clinton friend James Carville has so happily (if inadvertently) pointed out for us, Hillary SAT ON HER CASH in the late days of election 2006 (having wrapped up a safe, overwhelming majority in New York), she did VERY LITTLE to support the Ned Lamont campaign... and thus has, we now see clearly, helped to UNDERMINE THE SENATE MAJORITY only 3 or 4 or 5 weeks after the Democrats regained that majority in the US Senate!
GOOD GOING, HILLARY! Is THIS the template for your future "leadership" - HELP the Republicans retain DOMINANT CONTROL OVER all THE ISSUES and AGENDAS the US senate is "ALLOWED" to discuss?
Hillary Clinton - Taking her MARCHING ORDERS from JOE LIEBERMAN, AIPAC, the REPUBLICAN MINORITY, and thus KARL ROVE's (and Dick Cheney's) FAX MACHINE.
Only 4 weeks after the Democrats majority of the senate has proven to be a paper tiger, Hillary's "LEADERSHIP" looks even more sad, pathetic, and formless than John Kerry's in 2004.
================================================
Lieberman Says War Vote Could Prompt Party Switch
By: Carrie Budoff
February 22, 2007
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2865.html
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., left to right, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speak about Iraq on Capitol Hill, Feb. 1, 2007, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq might change his mind.
Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of the war and President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 combat troops into Iraq to help quell the violence there.
"I have no desire to change parties," Lieberman said in a telephone interview. "If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don't feel comfortable with."
Asked whether that hasn't already happened with Iraq, Lieberman said: "We will see how that plays out in the coming months," specifically how the party approaches the issue of continued funding for the war.
More Info
For continuing coverage of this story visit The Crypt.
He suggested, however, that the forthcoming showdown over new funding could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the Republican Party.
"I hope we don't get to that point," Lieberman said. "That's about all I will say on it today. That would hurt."
Republicans have long targeted Lieberman to switch – a move that would give them control of the Senate. And Time magazine is set to report Friday that there is a “remote” chance Lieberman would join the GOP.
Poverty - DEEP POVERTY - up 26% since Bush stole White House. Democrats STILL UNABLE to hold Bush to his "MORE COMPASSIONATE" pledge after 6 long yrs
Poverty - DEEP POVERTY - up 26% since Bush stole White House.
U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty
By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) 2-22-07
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/politics/16760637.htm
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.... The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005....
U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty
By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) 2-22-07
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/politics/16760637.htm
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.... The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005....
Bush's war(s) the Last Gasp of white male (neo-confederate) entitlement...
photo- Little Rock Central High School: Desegregated in 1957 with the Protection of the U.S. Military
[Note: Republican "moral values" icon Senator Strom Thurmond departed the Democratic Party in 1948 in a huff when President Truman, a combat veteran of WWI, used his executive powers to DESGREGATE the military after much had been made of America fighting WWII to "make the world safe for democracy." Strom Thurmond went on to run for president as candidate of his own "DIXIECRAT PARTY" in '48, taking thousands of Democratic Party votes and leaders with him. Truman courageously continued to campaign town to town for votes in '48 despite the massive defection of Thurmond's Southern Democrats. Despite his massive uphill battle, and the relentless scorn of both the Northeastern press (which backed Republican former New York Governor Thomas Dewey) and much of the Southern press (which backed native son Thurmond) Truman won his amazing election battle, the one that has been iconized with the infamous "Dewey Defeats Truman!" headline that the Chicago Daily Tribune had errouneously published. What is important is that most of the Southern DEMOCRATIC representatives, senators, and leaders from the late 1940s to the late 1960s defected the Democratic Party to join the Republican Party, for one major reason: segregation and minority civil rights. When Republicans say that it was "Democrats who supported segregation" they are being disengenous: the most vocally pro-segregation Democrats like Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and John Connally, had left the Democratic Party when, after 1948, it became identified as the party against segregation.]
----------------------------------------------------------
From Little Rock to Baghdad - The Last Gasp of White Entitlement
Submitted by BuzzFlash
Fri, 02/23/2007
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/125
In many ways, the road to Baghdad began symbolically at Little Rock Central High School, which was desegregated 50 years ago after armed federal intervention.
It was one of the milestones of the Civil Rights era -- and a sign to the white southern male that the era of plantation style entitlement was finally coming to an end. It's hard even, today, to realize that some people felt that they were closer to God and civilized standards because of the color of their skin. It's hard, because some people -- although not publicly proclaiming the belief -- still harbor it.
In fact, one could argue that the entire Bush Administration -- black window dressing like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice aside -- is about white male entitlement.
The mystery of what Bush or Cheney mean when they endlessly proclaim that GIs much die to accomplish the honor of "our mission" and achieve "victory" can be resolved with an understanding of white man's rules.
Bush and Cheney have offered us so many different "missions" for Iraq that they remind one of a toy terrier on speed.
But they have a different "mission" and definition of "victory" locked inside their heads, one that they dare not speak out loud. It's quite simple: the white man wins. For the white man to lose -- as the South did in the Civil War -- is to be shamelessly dishonored.
The synergistic issues of the control of Iraq's oil, the creation of a multi-national corporate marketplace in Iraq, and the geo-political colonization of Iraq all harken back to plantation politics.
Ownership is what is due to the white man. It is in the natural order of things to Bush and Cheney. It is their entitlement.
In the world of entitlement and neo-Confederacy social order, there is no need for accountability or responsibility. The white man is the head of the household, the owner of slaves, the exploiter of natural resources because this is in the natural order -- the religiously "pious" Southerners felt -- the divine order of things.
BuzzFlash recently paid a visit to Little Rock, Bill Clinton's old political stomping grounds. There were endless brochures describing all his haunts, but the one that drew us was Little Rock Central High and a National Park Service visitor center across the street that commemorated the historic and tumultuous integration of the school.
In the visitor center, it is clear that Clinton developed a special relationship with the High School and repeatedly recognized its importance as a milestone in the Civil Rights movement. Before he left office as President, he bestowed the Congressional Gold Medal on the "Little Rock Nine," the intrepid black Americans who endured the most vile of hatred as they challenged the doctrine of segregated education.
Many white males -- and white women -- who are heirs to the Confederacy "white entitlement" outlook hated Clinton for embracing the Civil Rights movement and for nurturing a diverse society. Clinton took the words "opportunity for all Americans" to heart -- and the right wing viscerally detested him for it.
Why would a white Southern male betray his race and gender and voluntarily abandon "white entitlement"? White male entitlement is the ultimate affirmative action program. In fact the entire system of slavery was an affirmative action society and economy run for the benefit of a white power base. Just look at Bush. The man would be lucky to get a job cleaning out stables if he didn't have the ultimate white male entitlement "pedigree."
And so it is with Cheney, who relentlessly utters the mantra of "victory" and "honor" lying ahead of us in Iraq, because a white man can't "lose" to men and women of color -- and non-Christians to boot.
This is the definition of "victory" in the end for Bush and Cheney: white men -- whatever their personal deficiencies -- can't lose. It is just not allowed.
That is, perhaps, how we journeyed from Little Rock Central High School -- through a celebration of equality and the embracing of diveristy under Bill Clinton -- to the bloodbath of Iraq.
If you were the master of a plantation, you could go whoring, drinking and gambling, but you could not be dethroned or fall from your position of ownership, because you had white male entitlement. You remained "the decider" no matter what. That is what the ante-bellum social and economic structure was built upon.
The unshakable core of Bush and Cheney's base may baffle persons who see the current Executive Branch leadership as impairing the national security of the United States and possibly precipitating WW III, not to mention bankrupting our country and destroying our environment.
But when you owned a plantation in the days of slavery, you weren't accountable to anyone but yourself -- and if a black slave got uppity, you just lashed or hung him.
A white man never lost. That is the heritage mindset of Cheney and Bush.
This is how we traveled from the promise of the Civil Rights era to the bloodbath of Baghdad.
A white man of the Confederacy can't back down, whatever his errors.
They call it "honor."
We call it a betrayal of our Constitution, accountability, common sense, and the safety of every American.
Most of us thought the Civil War ended in 1865.
But it hasn't really at all.
Dick Cheney and George W. Bush are fighting that battle all over again, trying to avenge the defeat of the South and impose white male entitlement as the law of the land.
Beyond it being morally repugnant, it is a doomed mindset and strategy that can only end in disaster.
It already has.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Jilted Hillary bashes Obama supporter... for DARING to criticize her campaign!
Like George W. Bush (running for the Republican nomination) in 2000, it is clear that HILLARY CLINTON thinks SHE OWNS the Democratic nomination for 2008, as her campaign staff's fierce blast at Hollywood producer and "liberal Democrat" fundraiser David Geffen illustrates.
For SIX LONG YEARS Democratic voters, activists, supporters, and donors have been looking for SOMEONE to LEAD THE FIGHT against the errors, arrogance, corruption, and outright CRIMES of the Bush White House - including TORTURE, ILLEGAL SPYING, MASSIVE Iraq war and post-Katrina reconstruction FRAUD, and even the ILLEGAL OUTING of a CIA agent... (and PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE to bury and whitewash that case)... among many other such cases of White House criminality and corruption - and when she finally gets the microphone of national attention for a national race after securing her senate re-election, Hillary wants to talk about.... BARAK OBAMA's CAMPAIGN DONORS, as if THEY should APOLOGIZE for their vocal criticisms of Hillary's INSIDE-the-BELTWAY ARROGANCE and AWOL LEADERSHIP re all the above Bush White House criminal conduct!
THANKS for VERY LITTLE, Hillary; you CAN'T LEAD a DEMOCRATIC FILIBUSTER (threat to SHUT DOWN THE US CONGRESS) against all those gross abuses of the Bush White House, BUT YOU WILL STAND SILENT as the Rethuglicans FILIBUSTER even DISCUSSION of the Iraq war mismanagement - and INSTEAD you try to SILENCE YOUR CRITICS!
How very democratic (NOT!) of the Senator from New York.
__________________________________________________________________________
Hell, Hillary APES George W. Bush in NOT NOTICING the Iraq war wounded veterans WAREHOUSED in a cockroach infested hotel, "Building 18" of the Walter Reed Army Medical complex... right there a few blocks away from the Capitol!
IT's NOT like the Senator would use her MEDIA ATTENTION to VISIT those wounded, warehoused soldiers and DEMAND that President Bush and the Rethuglican Party DO BETTER by our wounded and traumatized veterans... she has MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO, raising million dollar donor checks to RAM her nomination down Democratic throats.
MESSAGE to Hillary and the DLC "Democrats": IF you aren't BLASTING the CORRPTION, INCOMPETENCE, FRAUD, DECEIT, and national-security debilitating LIES of Mr. Bush's administration, like YESTERDAY, then you are FRUSTRATING THE HELL OUT OF US demcoratic voters.
Hillary looks to REPEAT the gross errors of the Gore and Kerry campaigns: KID-GLOVE treatment of the record of George W. Bush, in an effort to woo "muddled middle" voters, who will put "WE SUPPORT THE TROOPS!" $3 made-in-China bumper stickers on their cars, but would rather hear about dead bimbo millionaire blondes than about returning COMBAT VETERANS, warehoused in despicable conditions and forced to pay for their own rehab and medical care.
HOW PATHETIC! from someone who PRESUMES to have the courage to lead all of America....
========================================
Mike Stark at Huffington Post reminds us: Hillary would rather COZY UP TO RUPERT MURDOCH, and possibly even Clinton nemesis RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE, than CONFRONT the Bush-Cheney White House....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-stark/hillary-and-bill-clinto_b_41823.html
=======================================
Clinton, Obama, come out swinging
Fundraiser's barbs spark war of words
By Mike Dorning and Jill Zuckman
Tribune national correspondents
Published February 22, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-070221obama-spat,1,5983448.story?coll=chi-news-hed
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- One day after Sen. Barack Obama made a glittery statement with a Hollywood fundraiser that brought in an impressive $1.3 million, the top two Democratic presidential contenders went after each other in the first big food fight of the 2008 presidential election.
It started when David Geffen slammed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in remarks published Wednesday morning, accusing the presidential candidate of lying with "such ease" compared to other politicians, dismissing her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as "reckless," and blasting the Clinton "machine." Geffen, a powerful Hollywood producer and executive, was once a major Clinton supporter but has switched to Obama and was a host of Tuesday's bash.
The Clinton campaign, perhaps stung by Obama's successful incursion into Hollywood, which at one time was unchallenged Clinton country, hit back hard, saying Geffen's comments contrasted poorly with the Illinois senator's self-promotion as a new breed of politician, unifying and optimistic.
"If Sen. Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money," said Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson. "While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Sen. Obama's principal fundraiser."
The Clintons have long been known for skilled, aggressive political infighting, and Geffen's comments provided a way for the Clinton campaign to test how Obama, relatively new to the national stage, would take a punch. It also was the first of what will no doubt be many attempts by rivals to knock the halo off Obama's head.
The Obama camp—eager to show that it knew how to handle criticism and could stand up to an experienced political warrior like Clinton—issued a biting statement.
"We aren't going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters," said Obama communications director Robert Gibbs. "It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when he was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom."
Obama also took the opportunity to go on offense, suggesting that Clinton was being hypocritical, since she had not disavowed the recent comments of South Carolina state Sen. Robert Ford. Ford, who has endorsed Clinton, said last week that if Obama were the Democratic nominee, "Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose, because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything."
Gibbs said Wednesday that it is "ironic" that Clinton has praised Ford and accepted his support.
If both candidates had reasons for engaging in what might seem like a minor squabble, the spectacle of Clinton and Obama duking it out so early in the campaign was nonetheless striking. It was the sort of rat-a-tat-tat political spat that usually breaks out in the snowy cold of New Hampshire in the critical days before the nation's first presidential primary, rather than 11 months before that contest and almost two years before the 2008 election.
Geffen interview sparked spat
What ignited the battle of words was an interview with Geffen in Wednesday's New York Times by columnist Maureen Dowd, in which Geffen portrayed himself as disenchanted with both Clintons, their failure to always stand firm on principle and their style of political battle. "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling," he said.
He called Bill Clinton "a reckless guy" who "gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country." Geffen slammed Hillary Clinton for refusing to apologize for her vote to authorize the Iraq war. "It's not a very big thing to say, 'I made a mistake' on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't," Geffen said.
Asked if Obama would be able to stand up to the Clinton machine, Geffen said, "I hope so, because that machine is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective."
This rhetorical eruption came one day after Geffen—along with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, his partners in DreamWorks SKG—hosted a $2,300-per-person fundraiser for Obama at the Beverly Hilton, site of the glitzy Golden Globe Awards.
There was no red carpet, but stars of the entertainment world showed up in packs. Flashes popped in the hotel lobby as tourists spotted stars like Jennifer Aniston. She walked past purposefully, though she tossed her hair, turned and smiled when a fan with a digital camera yelled her name.
An all-star cast
Actors Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Morgan Freeman, and Christine Lahti also showed up. Singers Jackson Browne and the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines were there. And so were producers Norman Lear, Ron Howard, Lawrence Bender, producer of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," and J.J. Abrams. The heads of several major studios also attended.
Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington bought tickets but did not show up.
Despite the star power, the event was a low-key affair. No cameras were permitted inside the fundraiser, which drew 300 guests and raised about $1.3 million, according to Katzenberg. Hotel security guards ejected camera crews and ushered out several reporters who had not registered as guests, explaining that they were acting on instructions from the organizers.
For SIX LONG YEARS Democratic voters, activists, supporters, and donors have been looking for SOMEONE to LEAD THE FIGHT against the errors, arrogance, corruption, and outright CRIMES of the Bush White House - including TORTURE, ILLEGAL SPYING, MASSIVE Iraq war and post-Katrina reconstruction FRAUD, and even the ILLEGAL OUTING of a CIA agent... (and PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE to bury and whitewash that case)... among many other such cases of White House criminality and corruption - and when she finally gets the microphone of national attention for a national race after securing her senate re-election, Hillary wants to talk about.... BARAK OBAMA's CAMPAIGN DONORS, as if THEY should APOLOGIZE for their vocal criticisms of Hillary's INSIDE-the-BELTWAY ARROGANCE and AWOL LEADERSHIP re all the above Bush White House criminal conduct!
THANKS for VERY LITTLE, Hillary; you CAN'T LEAD a DEMOCRATIC FILIBUSTER (threat to SHUT DOWN THE US CONGRESS) against all those gross abuses of the Bush White House, BUT YOU WILL STAND SILENT as the Rethuglicans FILIBUSTER even DISCUSSION of the Iraq war mismanagement - and INSTEAD you try to SILENCE YOUR CRITICS!
How very democratic (NOT!) of the Senator from New York.
__________________________________________________________________________
Hell, Hillary APES George W. Bush in NOT NOTICING the Iraq war wounded veterans WAREHOUSED in a cockroach infested hotel, "Building 18" of the Walter Reed Army Medical complex... right there a few blocks away from the Capitol!
IT's NOT like the Senator would use her MEDIA ATTENTION to VISIT those wounded, warehoused soldiers and DEMAND that President Bush and the Rethuglican Party DO BETTER by our wounded and traumatized veterans... she has MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO, raising million dollar donor checks to RAM her nomination down Democratic throats.
MESSAGE to Hillary and the DLC "Democrats": IF you aren't BLASTING the CORRPTION, INCOMPETENCE, FRAUD, DECEIT, and national-security debilitating LIES of Mr. Bush's administration, like YESTERDAY, then you are FRUSTRATING THE HELL OUT OF US demcoratic voters.
Hillary looks to REPEAT the gross errors of the Gore and Kerry campaigns: KID-GLOVE treatment of the record of George W. Bush, in an effort to woo "muddled middle" voters, who will put "WE SUPPORT THE TROOPS!" $3 made-in-China bumper stickers on their cars, but would rather hear about dead bimbo millionaire blondes than about returning COMBAT VETERANS, warehoused in despicable conditions and forced to pay for their own rehab and medical care.
HOW PATHETIC! from someone who PRESUMES to have the courage to lead all of America....
========================================
Mike Stark at Huffington Post reminds us: Hillary would rather COZY UP TO RUPERT MURDOCH, and possibly even Clinton nemesis RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE, than CONFRONT the Bush-Cheney White House....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-stark/hillary-and-bill-clinto_b_41823.html
=======================================
Clinton, Obama, come out swinging
Fundraiser's barbs spark war of words
By Mike Dorning and Jill Zuckman
Tribune national correspondents
Published February 22, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-070221obama-spat,1,5983448.story?coll=chi-news-hed
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- One day after Sen. Barack Obama made a glittery statement with a Hollywood fundraiser that brought in an impressive $1.3 million, the top two Democratic presidential contenders went after each other in the first big food fight of the 2008 presidential election.
It started when David Geffen slammed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in remarks published Wednesday morning, accusing the presidential candidate of lying with "such ease" compared to other politicians, dismissing her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as "reckless," and blasting the Clinton "machine." Geffen, a powerful Hollywood producer and executive, was once a major Clinton supporter but has switched to Obama and was a host of Tuesday's bash.
The Clinton campaign, perhaps stung by Obama's successful incursion into Hollywood, which at one time was unchallenged Clinton country, hit back hard, saying Geffen's comments contrasted poorly with the Illinois senator's self-promotion as a new breed of politician, unifying and optimistic.
"If Sen. Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money," said Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson. "While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Sen. Obama's principal fundraiser."
The Clintons have long been known for skilled, aggressive political infighting, and Geffen's comments provided a way for the Clinton campaign to test how Obama, relatively new to the national stage, would take a punch. It also was the first of what will no doubt be many attempts by rivals to knock the halo off Obama's head.
The Obama camp—eager to show that it knew how to handle criticism and could stand up to an experienced political warrior like Clinton—issued a biting statement.
"We aren't going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters," said Obama communications director Robert Gibbs. "It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when he was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom."
Obama also took the opportunity to go on offense, suggesting that Clinton was being hypocritical, since she had not disavowed the recent comments of South Carolina state Sen. Robert Ford. Ford, who has endorsed Clinton, said last week that if Obama were the Democratic nominee, "Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose, because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything."
Gibbs said Wednesday that it is "ironic" that Clinton has praised Ford and accepted his support.
If both candidates had reasons for engaging in what might seem like a minor squabble, the spectacle of Clinton and Obama duking it out so early in the campaign was nonetheless striking. It was the sort of rat-a-tat-tat political spat that usually breaks out in the snowy cold of New Hampshire in the critical days before the nation's first presidential primary, rather than 11 months before that contest and almost two years before the 2008 election.
Geffen interview sparked spat
What ignited the battle of words was an interview with Geffen in Wednesday's New York Times by columnist Maureen Dowd, in which Geffen portrayed himself as disenchanted with both Clintons, their failure to always stand firm on principle and their style of political battle. "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling," he said.
He called Bill Clinton "a reckless guy" who "gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country." Geffen slammed Hillary Clinton for refusing to apologize for her vote to authorize the Iraq war. "It's not a very big thing to say, 'I made a mistake' on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't," Geffen said.
Asked if Obama would be able to stand up to the Clinton machine, Geffen said, "I hope so, because that machine is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective."
This rhetorical eruption came one day after Geffen—along with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, his partners in DreamWorks SKG—hosted a $2,300-per-person fundraiser for Obama at the Beverly Hilton, site of the glitzy Golden Globe Awards.
There was no red carpet, but stars of the entertainment world showed up in packs. Flashes popped in the hotel lobby as tourists spotted stars like Jennifer Aniston. She walked past purposefully, though she tossed her hair, turned and smiled when a fan with a digital camera yelled her name.
An all-star cast
Actors Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Morgan Freeman, and Christine Lahti also showed up. Singers Jackson Browne and the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines were there. And so were producers Norman Lear, Ron Howard, Lawrence Bender, producer of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," and J.J. Abrams. The heads of several major studios also attended.
Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington bought tickets but did not show up.
Despite the star power, the event was a low-key affair. No cameras were permitted inside the fundraiser, which drew 300 guests and raised about $1.3 million, according to Katzenberg. Hotel security guards ejected camera crews and ushered out several reporters who had not registered as guests, explaining that they were acting on instructions from the organizers.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The president is a liar: his pledge "to demand the resignation of anyone involved in leaking an undercover CIA operative" was a bold-faced lie
We Americans live in a "through the looking glass" nightmare where radical right-wing Republicans can make President Clinton's overnight guest list at the White House into a huge, headline dominating SCANDAL ("the Lincoln bedroom SCANDAL"), but when the President of the United States is caught, repeatedly, BOLD FACED LYING about matters vital to national security - including SABOTAGING an entire undercover CIA operation designed to monitor WMD programs, by "outing" one of the undercover agents and thereby "outing" the entire cover organization (Brewster-Jennings co.) - the Washington Post and New York Times and all the lesser media respond with a big yawn.
Republicans: can turn Democratic party NON-scandals into blaring headline scream marathons....
Democrats: can not even preserve the voting rights of disenfranchised voters; can not even investigate the 9-11 debacle without the 9-11 widows doing the heavy lifting; can not demand investigations into easily manipulated computerized voting machines; can not demand answers from the White House regarding serial and systematic lies to war; and can't even demand a thorough investigation into the ANTHRAX ATTACK on.... two members of the Senate Democratic leadership, (former Senate Majority Leader) TOM DASCHLE, and (former and current) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman PATRICK LEAHY, who for SOME REASON were the SOLE RECIPIENTS of the deadly ANTRHAX LETTERS.
Senators, if you don't demand more thorough answers to the ANTHRAX TERROR ATTACKS because of your own personal fears and intimidations..... How about asking for answers on behalf of the FIVE MURDERED US POSTAL WORKERS and their families, who, like the 9-11 crewmembers and passengers, were made to unwillingly make the ultimate sacrifice working for America because of a national security establishment gone haywire ("heck of a job, Brownie!") under this president?
HERE are the president's staff DIRECTLY INVOLVED in "shopping" undercover CIA spy VALERIE PLAME WILSON's name to Washington area journalists and reporters, in the hopes that Ms. Plame's name would soon because almost as well known as Monica Lewinky's name was at the height of the REPUBLICAN IMPEACHMENT efforts against President Bill Clinton.
=============================================
All these President's men leaked CIA agent's name
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/499053p-420743c.html
WASHINGTON - Any staffer proven to have leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity "would no longer be in this administration," former White House spokesman Scott McClellan promised in September 2003.
But three years later, President Bush hasn't sacked anyone, even though the perjury trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby - which resumes today - shows at least 10 other top officials blabbed about the spy whose job as a covert agent was classified as an official government secret.
Vice President Cheney
When Libby reminded his boss the vice president that he learned about Plame from him, Cheney tilted his head quizzically and said, "From me?"
Karl Rove
Bush's top political mastermind told reporters Robert Novak and Matt Cooper about Plame.
Richard Armitage
The former deputy secretary of state gossiped about Plame to Novak, and marveled to Watergate icon Bob Woodward, "How about that?"
Ari Fleischer
Bush's former spokesman got immunity before admitting he told reporters John Dickerson and David Gregory about Plame. Reporter Walter Pincus said Fleischer told him about her, too.
Dan Bartlett
Fleischer claimed Bush's counselor blurted out to him on Air Force One in July 2003 that Plame "worked at the CIA."
Robert Grenier
The top CIA official overseeing Iraq operations got nervous over Libby's pestering and later "felt guilty" about telling Cheney's chief of staff about Plame.
Bill Harlow
The CIA spokesman told Cheney flack Cathie Martin.
Cathie Martin
She told Cheney and Libby about Plame.
Marc Grossman
The No. 3 at the State Department also told Libby about Plame.
Craig Schmall
Cheney's CIA daily briefer discussed Plame with Libby.
Republicans: can turn Democratic party NON-scandals into blaring headline scream marathons....
Democrats: can not even preserve the voting rights of disenfranchised voters; can not even investigate the 9-11 debacle without the 9-11 widows doing the heavy lifting; can not demand investigations into easily manipulated computerized voting machines; can not demand answers from the White House regarding serial and systematic lies to war; and can't even demand a thorough investigation into the ANTHRAX ATTACK on.... two members of the Senate Democratic leadership, (former Senate Majority Leader) TOM DASCHLE, and (former and current) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman PATRICK LEAHY, who for SOME REASON were the SOLE RECIPIENTS of the deadly ANTRHAX LETTERS.
Senators, if you don't demand more thorough answers to the ANTHRAX TERROR ATTACKS because of your own personal fears and intimidations..... How about asking for answers on behalf of the FIVE MURDERED US POSTAL WORKERS and their families, who, like the 9-11 crewmembers and passengers, were made to unwillingly make the ultimate sacrifice working for America because of a national security establishment gone haywire ("heck of a job, Brownie!") under this president?
HERE are the president's staff DIRECTLY INVOLVED in "shopping" undercover CIA spy VALERIE PLAME WILSON's name to Washington area journalists and reporters, in the hopes that Ms. Plame's name would soon because almost as well known as Monica Lewinky's name was at the height of the REPUBLICAN IMPEACHMENT efforts against President Bill Clinton.
=============================================
All these President's men leaked CIA agent's name
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/499053p-420743c.html
WASHINGTON - Any staffer proven to have leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity "would no longer be in this administration," former White House spokesman Scott McClellan promised in September 2003.
But three years later, President Bush hasn't sacked anyone, even though the perjury trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby - which resumes today - shows at least 10 other top officials blabbed about the spy whose job as a covert agent was classified as an official government secret.
Vice President Cheney
When Libby reminded his boss the vice president that he learned about Plame from him, Cheney tilted his head quizzically and said, "From me?"
Karl Rove
Bush's top political mastermind told reporters Robert Novak and Matt Cooper about Plame.
Richard Armitage
The former deputy secretary of state gossiped about Plame to Novak, and marveled to Watergate icon Bob Woodward, "How about that?"
Ari Fleischer
Bush's former spokesman got immunity before admitting he told reporters John Dickerson and David Gregory about Plame. Reporter Walter Pincus said Fleischer told him about her, too.
Dan Bartlett
Fleischer claimed Bush's counselor blurted out to him on Air Force One in July 2003 that Plame "worked at the CIA."
Robert Grenier
The top CIA official overseeing Iraq operations got nervous over Libby's pestering and later "felt guilty" about telling Cheney's chief of staff about Plame.
Bill Harlow
The CIA spokesman told Cheney flack Cathie Martin.
Cathie Martin
She told Cheney and Libby about Plame.
Marc Grossman
The No. 3 at the State Department also told Libby about Plame.
Craig Schmall
Cheney's CIA daily briefer discussed Plame with Libby.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
NY Times, Washington Post boost Bush imperial wartime powers....
On a day when the Congress provided a long overdue rebuke - a "non-binding resolution" against the Bush White House's determination to escalate the Iraq war.... and Senate Republicans had to rely on the FILIBUSTER to OBSTRUCT even debate on the war in that body; the WASHINGTON POST and NEW YORK TIMES predictably COME RUSHING TO BUSH's assistance, offering up their typical whitewash of events and public outrage over the administration's abysmal leadership and underhanded political tactics.
First, the Dean of the Washington Press corpse, DAVID BRODER, writes his oh-so respectable editorial, "Bush Regains his footing." What does Broder care that the LIBBY TRIAL proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did President Bush and Vice President Cheney ORCHESTRATE the "outing" of an undercover CIA operative (Mrs. Valerie Plame Wilson) in an effort to discredit and intimidate her husband, but that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their ENTIRE senior White House staff worked furiously TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE by lying to the FBI investigation into the illegal outing in an attempt to hush the facts before the 2004 outcome. WE REMIND the august Mr. Broder that Bill Clinton was IMPEACHED for "lying," and investor Martha Stewart was CONVICTED for "lying," but not only did the Bush-Cheney White House illegally "out" an undercover CIA operative, but they LIED and OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE in an effort to win the 2004 election.
THAT's FINE with Mr. Broder and his superiors at the Washington Post!
Next, the Post publishes an op-ed by resident neo-con apologist HOWARD KURTZ about MICHELLE MALKIN, a Right-Wing instigator only slightly less insipid and racist than than MICHAEL SAVAGE and ANN COULTER:
Kurtz writes:
<< Plenty of folks find Malkin's rhetoric overheated as well. "The donkey party," she wrote last fall, "is led by thumb-sucking demagogues in prominent positions who equate Bush with Hitler and Jim Crow, call him a liar in front of high school students and the world, fantasize about impeachment and fetishize the human rights of terrorists who want to kill me. Put simply: There are no grown-ups in the Democrat Party." >>
Well, President Bush IS a liar - as recounted immediately above - and more to the point, the WASHINGTON POST had NO problem calling former President Clinton "A LIAR," and giving voice (editorial space, and screaming front-page headlines) to EVERY Republican leader in 1998 who demanded PRESIDENT CLINTON's IMPEACHMENT - for "lying"!
Finally, over at the Sulzberger-owned neo-con NEW YORK TIMES, the Times publishes this misleading headline (at least on their on-line site): "IRANIAN WEAPONS IN IRAQ."
ONLY on further inspection, do you see that the blaring statement is under a "Q. & A." headline
Clearly, the NEW YORK TIMES believes that the United States has more right to supply BILLIONS in arms and weapons to Israel, than Iran has to supply any weapons to Iran. But more to the point... WHERE IS THE NEW YORK TIME's OUTRAGE at SAUDI FUNDING of insurgents ("terrorists") in Iraq??
Answer: NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. Just as the New York Times REFUSES to make VOTE MACHINE FRAUD, missing billions of taxpayers funds, the entire trillion-dollar Bush-Republican deficits, Vice President Cheney's CONTINUING PAYMENTS from Halliburton corp., and the Bush family's TIES TO ENRON (or other war-profiting companies) as deserving of front-page attention.
The New York Times and Washignton Post: RELENTLESSLY MAKING molehills out of Bush-Republican SCANDALS, and MOUNTAINS ouf of Democratic NON-scandals.
('The White House "TRASHING" scandal' was AN ENTIRELY MANUFACTURED SCANDAL without ONE photograph of evidence, while the Post and Times efforts to make the "LINCOLN BEDROOM" into a "MAJOR SCANDAL" now seems farcical, if the affects were not so deadly serious.)
NY Times: "IRANIAN WEAPONS IN IRAQ" misleading story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/world/middleeast/17answers.html
Washington Post's HOWARD KURTZ portrays race-baiting right-wing anti-Constitution jihadist MICHELLE MALKIN as an innocent bystander:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021502065_pf.html
Washington Post's old grey pundit DAVID BRODER _ignores_ evidence from Libby trial that Bush White House orchestrated the EXPOSURE of an undercover CIA agent, then LIED to FBI agents investigating the crime, then OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE of the on-going investigation in hopes the WASHINGTO POST and other newspapers would give the adminstration a FREE PASS on the scandal past the November 2004 election...
Bush Regains His Footing
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501271.html
Bonus: the British "ECONOMIST" magazine cover portrays black, bat-winged US B2 bomber over map of Iran with issue headline "IRAN NEXT STOP?" in Bush/neo-con march to expanding wars....
First, the Dean of the Washington Press corpse, DAVID BRODER, writes his oh-so respectable editorial, "Bush Regains his footing." What does Broder care that the LIBBY TRIAL proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did President Bush and Vice President Cheney ORCHESTRATE the "outing" of an undercover CIA operative (Mrs. Valerie Plame Wilson) in an effort to discredit and intimidate her husband, but that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their ENTIRE senior White House staff worked furiously TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE by lying to the FBI investigation into the illegal outing in an attempt to hush the facts before the 2004 outcome. WE REMIND the august Mr. Broder that Bill Clinton was IMPEACHED for "lying," and investor Martha Stewart was CONVICTED for "lying," but not only did the Bush-Cheney White House illegally "out" an undercover CIA operative, but they LIED and OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE in an effort to win the 2004 election.
THAT's FINE with Mr. Broder and his superiors at the Washington Post!
Next, the Post publishes an op-ed by resident neo-con apologist HOWARD KURTZ about MICHELLE MALKIN, a Right-Wing instigator only slightly less insipid and racist than than MICHAEL SAVAGE and ANN COULTER:
Kurtz writes:
<< Plenty of folks find Malkin's rhetoric overheated as well. "The donkey party," she wrote last fall, "is led by thumb-sucking demagogues in prominent positions who equate Bush with Hitler and Jim Crow, call him a liar in front of high school students and the world, fantasize about impeachment and fetishize the human rights of terrorists who want to kill me. Put simply: There are no grown-ups in the Democrat Party." >>
Well, President Bush IS a liar - as recounted immediately above - and more to the point, the WASHINGTON POST had NO problem calling former President Clinton "A LIAR," and giving voice (editorial space, and screaming front-page headlines) to EVERY Republican leader in 1998 who demanded PRESIDENT CLINTON's IMPEACHMENT - for "lying"!
Finally, over at the Sulzberger-owned neo-con NEW YORK TIMES, the Times publishes this misleading headline (at least on their on-line site): "IRANIAN WEAPONS IN IRAQ."
ONLY on further inspection, do you see that the blaring statement is under a "Q. & A." headline
Clearly, the NEW YORK TIMES believes that the United States has more right to supply BILLIONS in arms and weapons to Israel, than Iran has to supply any weapons to Iran. But more to the point... WHERE IS THE NEW YORK TIME's OUTRAGE at SAUDI FUNDING of insurgents ("terrorists") in Iraq??
Answer: NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. Just as the New York Times REFUSES to make VOTE MACHINE FRAUD, missing billions of taxpayers funds, the entire trillion-dollar Bush-Republican deficits, Vice President Cheney's CONTINUING PAYMENTS from Halliburton corp., and the Bush family's TIES TO ENRON (or other war-profiting companies) as deserving of front-page attention.
The New York Times and Washignton Post: RELENTLESSLY MAKING molehills out of Bush-Republican SCANDALS, and MOUNTAINS ouf of Democratic NON-scandals.
('The White House "TRASHING" scandal' was AN ENTIRELY MANUFACTURED SCANDAL without ONE photograph of evidence, while the Post and Times efforts to make the "LINCOLN BEDROOM" into a "MAJOR SCANDAL" now seems farcical, if the affects were not so deadly serious.)
NY Times: "IRANIAN WEAPONS IN IRAQ" misleading story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/world/middleeast/17answers.html
Washington Post's HOWARD KURTZ portrays race-baiting right-wing anti-Constitution jihadist MICHELLE MALKIN as an innocent bystander:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021502065_pf.html
Washington Post's old grey pundit DAVID BRODER _ignores_ evidence from Libby trial that Bush White House orchestrated the EXPOSURE of an undercover CIA agent, then LIED to FBI agents investigating the crime, then OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE of the on-going investigation in hopes the WASHINGTO POST and other newspapers would give the adminstration a FREE PASS on the scandal past the November 2004 election...
Bush Regains His Footing
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501271.html
Bonus: the British "ECONOMIST" magazine cover portrays black, bat-winged US B2 bomber over map of Iran with issue headline "IRAN NEXT STOP?" in Bush/neo-con march to expanding wars....
House provides oversight, rebukes Bush on conduct of Iraq war, occupation....
House Rebukes Bush on Iraq
17 Republicans Join 229 Democrats in Opposing Deployment of More Troops
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 17, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021600606_pf.html
Capping four days of passionate, often angry debate, the House yesterday delivered President Bush its first rebuke since the Iraq war was launched nearly four years ago, voting 246 to 182 to oppose the administration's planned deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq.
Seventeen Republicans voted with all but two Democrats to approve a resolution that expresses support for U.S. combat forces but opposes the additional deployments. Democrats portrayed the vote as a bipartisan slap at the White House, but Republican leaders kept GOP defections below even their most optimistic estimates, as the debate crescendoed to a dramatic close yesterday.
Although the measure is nonbinding, proponents and opponents delivered outsized predictions of the vote's consequences. Democrats asserted that it will begin to turn the political tide so decisively that the president will have no choice but to begin bringing U.S. forces home, while Republicans warned darkly that the House has emboldened murderous Islamic terrorists at the expense not only of American lives but also of America's way of life.
"Our enemies will be the only ones satisfied by this debate," warned Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the Republicans' chief deputy whip. "They will have received all the political rhetoric they require to convince their followers that complete victory is at hand."
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that the resolution's passage "will signal a change in direction in Iraq that will end the fighting and bring our troops home safely and soon."
The Senate plans to hold an unusual weekend session today to vote on whether to proceed with a debate on the House-passed resolution. Although the resolution is merely an expression of lawmakers' views, Pelosi and other House Democrats have vowed to impose conditions on their support for Bush's war-funding request. Those stipulations could curtail troop deployments and alter the course of U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Bush did not publicly comment on the House vote, but White House press secretary Tony Snow said in a statement: "The president believes that the Congress should provide the full funding and flexibility our Armed Forces need to succeed in their mission to protect our country."
Some liberals and conservatives dismissed the House resolution as merely a symbolic gesture and said that Democratic leaders should have resorted to binding legislation if they were serious about stopping the troop buildup. But House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said that Bush would have vetoed such a bill, with no possibility of an override. The nonbinding resolution is not dependent on the president's signature.
"What the president cannot veto is the opinion of the Congress of the United States, the judgment of the Congress of the United States, the counsel of the Congress of the United States," Hoyer added, pounding on a lectern after the vote. "Let us hope that the commander in chief hears this counsel."
If anything, the Republicans were even more dramatic, as they concluded a debate that sent 393 of the House's 434 members -- 221 Democrats and 172 Republicans -- to the floor over a grueling 44 hours and 55 minutes.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) called the vote "the first step down a very treacherous path, a path that if followed will endanger Americans for decades to come."
As Pelosi delivered her closing remarks in the House chamber, Republican leaders abandoned the floor and crossed the Capitol to appear with their Senate counterparts and denounce what they called the Democrats' "slow-bleed strategy" for the war.
Still, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) noted, yesterday's House vote marked the first time Republicans in significant numbers have broken with Bush on the war. The 17 dissidents included longtime GOP foes of the war, such as Reps. Walter B. Jones (N.C.) and Ron Paul (Tex.), but also low-key backbenchers such as Reps. Timothy V. Johnson (Ill.) and Fred Upton (Mich.), staunch conservatives such as Reps. Bob Inglis (S.C.) and Howard Coble (N.C.), and moderates who usually stick with the leadership, such as Reps. Mark Steven Kirk (Ill.) and Phil English (Pa.).
Locally, Reps. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.) and Wayne T. Gilchrest (Md.) voted for the resolution, along with all of Maryland's and Virginia's Democrats.
Just two Democrats, Reps. Jim Marshall (Ga.) and Gene Taylor (Miss.) voted against the measure.
In contrast, a two-day debate in June over a pro-Bush Iraq war resolution drafted by House Republicans ended with 42 Democrats joining the Republicans. Just three Republicans broke rank then.
On Oct. 10, 2002, the House voted 296 to 133 to authorize Bush to go to war with Iraq, with 81 Democrats joining 215 Republicans to pass the measure.
GOP leaders said they did not pressure any of their members in yesterday's vote, nor did they count votes ahead of time. But behind the scenes, "there was tremendous pressure from the White House," said Davis, who added that he was bombarded with facts and information sheets pressing for a "no" vote.
A senior Republican lawmaker said that, at the start of the week, the GOP leadership expected to lose upward of 50 members, but that number dropped into the mid-30s by the middle of the week. After Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) went public with his plans to curtail troop deployments, the number dropped down into the teens, settling at 17 by the vote on Friday.
"I think Murtha absolutely exposed them for what they are," Cantor said. The longer the debate went on, he said, the more GOP leaders felt that their side was firming up against the resolution. "Murtha's announcement did it for us," Cantor added. "There was clearly a significant shift in the debate."
With public opinion turning firmly against the war, the Democrats believe they were in a no-lose situation politically. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, reiterated a well-worn attack line when he said that Republicans had "rubber-stamped the president's failed policies in Iraq."
"There are a lot of people who clearly didn't get the message that the American people sent in the last election," he said. "Every constituent has a right to know where their members stood on this issue, and every constituent will know."
Democrats in the Senate face a similar political dynamic. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said yesterday that most Republicans will block a debate on the House-passed resolution until they are guaranteed a vote on a resolution opposing any effort to cut off funding for the war. He predicted that Democrats will muster nowhere near the 60 votes they would need today to move to a debate on the resolution opposing additional troop deployments.
Many Republicans will not bother to show up in the rare Saturday session. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) will be campaigning for president in Iowa. A Democratic counterpart, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), will be campaigning in South Carolina.
Democratic aides said that will only mean another round of newspaper headlines proclaiming that Republicans are blocking a debate on the war.
"Let us be clear," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said, "anyone voting 'no' tomorrow is voting to give the president a green light to escalate the war."
Washingtonpost.com staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this report.
17 Republicans Join 229 Democrats in Opposing Deployment of More Troops
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 17, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021600606_pf.html
Capping four days of passionate, often angry debate, the House yesterday delivered President Bush its first rebuke since the Iraq war was launched nearly four years ago, voting 246 to 182 to oppose the administration's planned deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq.
Seventeen Republicans voted with all but two Democrats to approve a resolution that expresses support for U.S. combat forces but opposes the additional deployments. Democrats portrayed the vote as a bipartisan slap at the White House, but Republican leaders kept GOP defections below even their most optimistic estimates, as the debate crescendoed to a dramatic close yesterday.
Although the measure is nonbinding, proponents and opponents delivered outsized predictions of the vote's consequences. Democrats asserted that it will begin to turn the political tide so decisively that the president will have no choice but to begin bringing U.S. forces home, while Republicans warned darkly that the House has emboldened murderous Islamic terrorists at the expense not only of American lives but also of America's way of life.
"Our enemies will be the only ones satisfied by this debate," warned Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the Republicans' chief deputy whip. "They will have received all the political rhetoric they require to convince their followers that complete victory is at hand."
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that the resolution's passage "will signal a change in direction in Iraq that will end the fighting and bring our troops home safely and soon."
The Senate plans to hold an unusual weekend session today to vote on whether to proceed with a debate on the House-passed resolution. Although the resolution is merely an expression of lawmakers' views, Pelosi and other House Democrats have vowed to impose conditions on their support for Bush's war-funding request. Those stipulations could curtail troop deployments and alter the course of U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Bush did not publicly comment on the House vote, but White House press secretary Tony Snow said in a statement: "The president believes that the Congress should provide the full funding and flexibility our Armed Forces need to succeed in their mission to protect our country."
Some liberals and conservatives dismissed the House resolution as merely a symbolic gesture and said that Democratic leaders should have resorted to binding legislation if they were serious about stopping the troop buildup. But House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said that Bush would have vetoed such a bill, with no possibility of an override. The nonbinding resolution is not dependent on the president's signature.
"What the president cannot veto is the opinion of the Congress of the United States, the judgment of the Congress of the United States, the counsel of the Congress of the United States," Hoyer added, pounding on a lectern after the vote. "Let us hope that the commander in chief hears this counsel."
If anything, the Republicans were even more dramatic, as they concluded a debate that sent 393 of the House's 434 members -- 221 Democrats and 172 Republicans -- to the floor over a grueling 44 hours and 55 minutes.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) called the vote "the first step down a very treacherous path, a path that if followed will endanger Americans for decades to come."
As Pelosi delivered her closing remarks in the House chamber, Republican leaders abandoned the floor and crossed the Capitol to appear with their Senate counterparts and denounce what they called the Democrats' "slow-bleed strategy" for the war.
Still, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) noted, yesterday's House vote marked the first time Republicans in significant numbers have broken with Bush on the war. The 17 dissidents included longtime GOP foes of the war, such as Reps. Walter B. Jones (N.C.) and Ron Paul (Tex.), but also low-key backbenchers such as Reps. Timothy V. Johnson (Ill.) and Fred Upton (Mich.), staunch conservatives such as Reps. Bob Inglis (S.C.) and Howard Coble (N.C.), and moderates who usually stick with the leadership, such as Reps. Mark Steven Kirk (Ill.) and Phil English (Pa.).
Locally, Reps. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.) and Wayne T. Gilchrest (Md.) voted for the resolution, along with all of Maryland's and Virginia's Democrats.
Just two Democrats, Reps. Jim Marshall (Ga.) and Gene Taylor (Miss.) voted against the measure.
In contrast, a two-day debate in June over a pro-Bush Iraq war resolution drafted by House Republicans ended with 42 Democrats joining the Republicans. Just three Republicans broke rank then.
On Oct. 10, 2002, the House voted 296 to 133 to authorize Bush to go to war with Iraq, with 81 Democrats joining 215 Republicans to pass the measure.
GOP leaders said they did not pressure any of their members in yesterday's vote, nor did they count votes ahead of time. But behind the scenes, "there was tremendous pressure from the White House," said Davis, who added that he was bombarded with facts and information sheets pressing for a "no" vote.
A senior Republican lawmaker said that, at the start of the week, the GOP leadership expected to lose upward of 50 members, but that number dropped into the mid-30s by the middle of the week. After Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) went public with his plans to curtail troop deployments, the number dropped down into the teens, settling at 17 by the vote on Friday.
"I think Murtha absolutely exposed them for what they are," Cantor said. The longer the debate went on, he said, the more GOP leaders felt that their side was firming up against the resolution. "Murtha's announcement did it for us," Cantor added. "There was clearly a significant shift in the debate."
With public opinion turning firmly against the war, the Democrats believe they were in a no-lose situation politically. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, reiterated a well-worn attack line when he said that Republicans had "rubber-stamped the president's failed policies in Iraq."
"There are a lot of people who clearly didn't get the message that the American people sent in the last election," he said. "Every constituent has a right to know where their members stood on this issue, and every constituent will know."
Democrats in the Senate face a similar political dynamic. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said yesterday that most Republicans will block a debate on the House-passed resolution until they are guaranteed a vote on a resolution opposing any effort to cut off funding for the war. He predicted that Democrats will muster nowhere near the 60 votes they would need today to move to a debate on the resolution opposing additional troop deployments.
Many Republicans will not bother to show up in the rare Saturday session. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) will be campaigning for president in Iowa. A Democratic counterpart, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), will be campaigning in South Carolina.
Democratic aides said that will only mean another round of newspaper headlines proclaiming that Republicans are blocking a debate on the war.
"Let us be clear," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said, "anyone voting 'no' tomorrow is voting to give the president a green light to escalate the war."
Washingtonpost.com staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this report.
Pelosi, Dems, signal stringent oversight of White House's claims to unlimited war, budget powers....
As usual, the SENATE Democrats are MIA, visibly ABSENT without excuse in this discussion, because a Republican FILIBUSTER obstructs even DISCUSSION of the president's claims for UNLIMITED WAR POWERS in the US Senate.
WHY, we must ask for the 1,000'th time, are REPUBLICANS ALLOWED TO USE THE FILIBUSTER, but Democrats are NOT?
Oh- that's right... being a Democratic voter, even when you are in the majority, means you are a SECOND CLASS CITIZEN in America (Florida 2000, Georgia and Minnesota 2002, Ohio 2004) as the Senate Democrat pooh-bahs take their marching orders ("conventional wisdom") from the same lobbyists, CEO's, and donors that fund the Bush-Rove-Cheney White House....
(To be specific, the FILIBUSTER is the power to OBSTRUCT: to grind the business of the Senate to a complete HALT. The Senate Democrats COULD play HARDBALL.... they _could_ organize a MAJORITY FILIBUSTER, they _could_ REFUSE to let the Senate consider ANY OTHER BUSINESS until the Rethuglican majority consider a full, fair, and demcoratic ("small-d" democratic) debate on the administration's conduct of the Iraq occupation.... but the Democrat leadership, as usual, is too shy, reticent, disorganized, and unwilling to match Republican fire with fire.)
==============================================
Democrats Signal a Wider Battle Lasting the Rest of President's Term
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 17, 2007; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021602049.html
After enjoying great deference in the conduct of national security for his first six years in office, President Bush now faces an assertive opposition Congress that has left him on the defensive. The nonbinding resolution passed by the House yesterday on a largely party-line vote seems certain to be the first of a series of actions that will challenge Bush for the remainder of his presidency.
At stake is not just Bush's decision to send an additional 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq, the plan specifically renounced by the resolution. By extension, the 246 to 182 vote passed judgment on Bush's overall stewardship of the war in Iraq and, more broadly, on his leadership in the world. At a time when the president is confronting Iran over its nuclear enrichment program, the House vote demonstrates that he has far less latitude to take aggressive action than he might have had in the past.
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"This is an important moment," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser and is now a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "And it's an important moment not only about what's in the past, or even in the present, but also what might be happening in the future."
The resolution, he said, "tells the president that the country's increasingly tired of the war and the country's reaction to his provoking a new war would be even worse."
Both sides recognized that the House vote, along with a Senate vote scheduled for today, represents the opening salvo in a more protracted struggle. "To me, this is kind of a baby step. It doesn't have teeth," said David J. Rothkopf, author of "Running the World," a book on the making of modern foreign policy. "The real question is going to be whether the Democratic leadership goes further and challenges funding, because that's where Congress historically has been able to show its influence."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her close adviser, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), are devising a strategy to tie Bush's hands by placing conditions on future funding for the war, such as requiring any units sent to Iraq to meet certain standards for training, equipment and rest between deployments. Because those conditions might be hard to meet, they could slowly constrict Bush's ability to keep up troop levels.
But yesterday's vote signaled peril for the Democratic congressional leadership as well. Despite deep Republican discontent with the course of the war, Democrats were unable to persuade more than 17 members of the president's party to register that dissatisfaction with their votes. If Democratic leaders could not build a broader bipartisan coalition for a symbolic vote, it may prove much harder to attract Republican support for proposals to limit Bush's options in Iraq.
Many Democratic strategists remain allergic to repeating the finale of the Vietnam War, when Congress voted to cut funds for the South Vietnamese government and the nation fell to the North in 1975. For years afterward, Democrats have struggled to shed the image of being soft on defense, which is why they were so eager to bring along more Republicans yesterday.
The White House privately pressed that point with wavering Republicans. Even as Bush resigned himself to certain passage of a resolution with no substantive force and publicly made little effort to oppose it, aides such as national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley lobbied GOP lawmakers to stick with the president to avoid emboldening Democrats down the line. "If Republicans go along with this," an administration official said, "it sends a message to Murtha about what he might be able to do with the supplemental" war-spending measure.
Administration allies warned about the precedent beyond Bush as well. "If Congress proceeds to throttle the president's strategy, then it will seriously undercut the ability of future presidents to do what they need to do to protect the nation in a time of war," said James Phillips, a foreign policy scholar at the Heritage Foundation. "It's a mistake to think you can effectively run a war by committee."
The president and Congress have wrestled over national security since the founding of the nation. The first congressional investigation back in 1792 when George Washington was president looked into a bloody military defeat inflicted by Native Americans. Congress challenged the White House during the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, rejected the Treaty of Versailles negotiated by Woodrow Wilson after World War I, and tried to keep Franklin D. Roosevelt from aiding allies facing threats from Nazi Germany.
The clash between branches came to a head during the Vietnam War, when Congress rescinded the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that Lyndon B. Johnson had used to justify an escalation. A measure to cut off money for the war was rejected in 1970 but increased pressure on Richard M. Nixon to turn the fighting over to the South Vietnamese. As Nixon withdrew U.S. forces, Congress in 1973 cut off funding for "offensive" operations, in effect ratifying what by then was the president's stated course. A 1974 vote cut aid to South Vietnamese forces by 50 percent after U.S. forces were already gone, leading to the fall of Saigon.
Tension between the executive and legislative branches over national security has percolated since then. Congress restricted Ronald Reagan from funding the contra rebels in Nicaragua, and the Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty submitted by Bill Clinton. But the tension had not reached the Vietnam War level until yesterday.
"There's always been a lot of dissent in wartime," said Senate historian Donald A. Ritchie. Sometimes, as in Vietnam, it takes a while to build, he added: "There's a certain point when everybody marches together. They were very much united with Johnson in '65 and '66. But when the war turned bad, that's when they broke away. The same was true in the Civil War, and the same was true in any protracted war when things didn't go well."
WHY, we must ask for the 1,000'th time, are REPUBLICANS ALLOWED TO USE THE FILIBUSTER, but Democrats are NOT?
Oh- that's right... being a Democratic voter, even when you are in the majority, means you are a SECOND CLASS CITIZEN in America (Florida 2000, Georgia and Minnesota 2002, Ohio 2004) as the Senate Democrat pooh-bahs take their marching orders ("conventional wisdom") from the same lobbyists, CEO's, and donors that fund the Bush-Rove-Cheney White House....
(To be specific, the FILIBUSTER is the power to OBSTRUCT: to grind the business of the Senate to a complete HALT. The Senate Democrats COULD play HARDBALL.... they _could_ organize a MAJORITY FILIBUSTER, they _could_ REFUSE to let the Senate consider ANY OTHER BUSINESS until the Rethuglican majority consider a full, fair, and demcoratic ("small-d" democratic) debate on the administration's conduct of the Iraq occupation.... but the Democrat leadership, as usual, is too shy, reticent, disorganized, and unwilling to match Republican fire with fire.)
==============================================
Democrats Signal a Wider Battle Lasting the Rest of President's Term
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 17, 2007; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021602049.html
After enjoying great deference in the conduct of national security for his first six years in office, President Bush now faces an assertive opposition Congress that has left him on the defensive. The nonbinding resolution passed by the House yesterday on a largely party-line vote seems certain to be the first of a series of actions that will challenge Bush for the remainder of his presidency.
At stake is not just Bush's decision to send an additional 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq, the plan specifically renounced by the resolution. By extension, the 246 to 182 vote passed judgment on Bush's overall stewardship of the war in Iraq and, more broadly, on his leadership in the world. At a time when the president is confronting Iran over its nuclear enrichment program, the House vote demonstrates that he has far less latitude to take aggressive action than he might have had in the past.
Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
The Big Picture
.Common Sense
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"This is an important moment," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser and is now a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "And it's an important moment not only about what's in the past, or even in the present, but also what might be happening in the future."
The resolution, he said, "tells the president that the country's increasingly tired of the war and the country's reaction to his provoking a new war would be even worse."
Both sides recognized that the House vote, along with a Senate vote scheduled for today, represents the opening salvo in a more protracted struggle. "To me, this is kind of a baby step. It doesn't have teeth," said David J. Rothkopf, author of "Running the World," a book on the making of modern foreign policy. "The real question is going to be whether the Democratic leadership goes further and challenges funding, because that's where Congress historically has been able to show its influence."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her close adviser, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), are devising a strategy to tie Bush's hands by placing conditions on future funding for the war, such as requiring any units sent to Iraq to meet certain standards for training, equipment and rest between deployments. Because those conditions might be hard to meet, they could slowly constrict Bush's ability to keep up troop levels.
But yesterday's vote signaled peril for the Democratic congressional leadership as well. Despite deep Republican discontent with the course of the war, Democrats were unable to persuade more than 17 members of the president's party to register that dissatisfaction with their votes. If Democratic leaders could not build a broader bipartisan coalition for a symbolic vote, it may prove much harder to attract Republican support for proposals to limit Bush's options in Iraq.
Many Democratic strategists remain allergic to repeating the finale of the Vietnam War, when Congress voted to cut funds for the South Vietnamese government and the nation fell to the North in 1975. For years afterward, Democrats have struggled to shed the image of being soft on defense, which is why they were so eager to bring along more Republicans yesterday.
The White House privately pressed that point with wavering Republicans. Even as Bush resigned himself to certain passage of a resolution with no substantive force and publicly made little effort to oppose it, aides such as national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley lobbied GOP lawmakers to stick with the president to avoid emboldening Democrats down the line. "If Republicans go along with this," an administration official said, "it sends a message to Murtha about what he might be able to do with the supplemental" war-spending measure.
Administration allies warned about the precedent beyond Bush as well. "If Congress proceeds to throttle the president's strategy, then it will seriously undercut the ability of future presidents to do what they need to do to protect the nation in a time of war," said James Phillips, a foreign policy scholar at the Heritage Foundation. "It's a mistake to think you can effectively run a war by committee."
The president and Congress have wrestled over national security since the founding of the nation. The first congressional investigation back in 1792 when George Washington was president looked into a bloody military defeat inflicted by Native Americans. Congress challenged the White House during the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, rejected the Treaty of Versailles negotiated by Woodrow Wilson after World War I, and tried to keep Franklin D. Roosevelt from aiding allies facing threats from Nazi Germany.
The clash between branches came to a head during the Vietnam War, when Congress rescinded the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that Lyndon B. Johnson had used to justify an escalation. A measure to cut off money for the war was rejected in 1970 but increased pressure on Richard M. Nixon to turn the fighting over to the South Vietnamese. As Nixon withdrew U.S. forces, Congress in 1973 cut off funding for "offensive" operations, in effect ratifying what by then was the president's stated course. A 1974 vote cut aid to South Vietnamese forces by 50 percent after U.S. forces were already gone, leading to the fall of Saigon.
Tension between the executive and legislative branches over national security has percolated since then. Congress restricted Ronald Reagan from funding the contra rebels in Nicaragua, and the Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty submitted by Bill Clinton. But the tension had not reached the Vietnam War level until yesterday.
"There's always been a lot of dissent in wartime," said Senate historian Donald A. Ritchie. Sometimes, as in Vietnam, it takes a while to build, he added: "There's a certain point when everybody marches together. They were very much united with Johnson in '65 and '66. But when the war turned bad, that's when they broke away. The same was true in the Civil War, and the same was true in any protracted war when things didn't go well."
AEI: Exxon billions $ fund think-tank which fuels neo-con, PNAC imperialism and Right-Wing jihad against US Constitution and America legal rights...
AEI: The Root of Bush’s Right-Wing Ideology
Today, President Bush delivered a speech on Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. AEI and the Bush administration are deeply entwined, something Bush admitted during his speech. “I admire AEI a lot,” Bush said. “After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration.”
(cont'd at http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/15/aei-bush-white-house/ )
Today, President Bush delivered a speech on Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. AEI and the Bush administration are deeply entwined, something Bush admitted during his speech. “I admire AEI a lot,” Bush said. “After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration.”
(cont'd at http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/15/aei-bush-white-house/ )
Democratss FINALLY prevent at least one Bush-Rove crony being forced on to US Attorney post....
Former Rove Aide Backs Out of U.S. Attorney Post; White House Linked to Predecessor’s Dismissal
http://www.airamerica.com/node/3331
The Bush administration’s campaign to stack the ranks of the U.S. attorneys with friendly faces is unraveling, as one such appointee – former Karl Rove aide Tim Griffin – has rejected the post, rather than face the prospect of confirmation hearings. This comes as new reports directly link the White House to the dismissal of the prosecutor Griffin was set to replace. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans yesterday blocked a bill aimed at curbing the administration’s power to avoid the confirmation process for replacement prosecutors.
http://www.airamerica.com/node/3331
The Bush administration’s campaign to stack the ranks of the U.S. attorneys with friendly faces is unraveling, as one such appointee – former Karl Rove aide Tim Griffin – has rejected the post, rather than face the prospect of confirmation hearings. This comes as new reports directly link the White House to the dismissal of the prosecutor Griffin was set to replace. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans yesterday blocked a bill aimed at curbing the administration’s power to avoid the confirmation process for replacement prosecutors.
Finally! A Democrat leader b-slaps the Repub leadership for USING OUR TROOPS as PAWNS for their incompetence & greed & lust for power in Iraq war.....
Finally - a Democratic leader CONFRONTS the APPALLING dereliction of duty, tolerance for corruption, tolerance for cronyism, if not the tolerance for outright crimes and corruption from the Bush administration and Republican members of Congress.....
-------------------------------------------
Representative Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) owns the Iraq debate--
by skymutt at DailyKos.com
Thu Feb 15, 2007
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/16/11256/2058
As we approach the final day of the debate on this resolution, I have enjoyed the debate thoroughly; I have found it humorous at times...
Our friends on the other side of the aisle have tried every argument they could muster; they've talked about President Clinton; they've talked about Vietnam; they're trying to bring up Israel;
And my friend from Indiana also mentioned something about the issue of consistency; and I find it funny that the pro-life-- the self-proclaimed pro-life party is the party that wants to keep extending the war;
I find it ironic that all of the great budget hawks of the Republican Party want to throw 8 billion dollars a month to keep going and going and going as we borrow the money from China;
But I also found the debate at times disappointing; where members of the other side have questioned our side; when they've said 'Whose side are we on?' and 'How can we say that we support the troops?' and that we're somehow unpatriotic.
And I would just like to say that, you know, when the Republican Party and this President didn't send enough troops, we didn't call you unpatriotic; and when you sent our young soldiers over there without the body armor, we never called you unpatriotic.
[republican tries to interrupt, fuck him]
I will not yield.
[republican won't shut his yap]
The house is not in order.
[republican back-bencher still tries to bully. Didn't we already tell you to STFU???]
[snip republican nobody getting scolded and slapped down by the speaker]
Thank you Mr. President. We never called the other side unpatriotic, when they sent our soldiers over without enough body armor. And when they didn't send enough up-armored Humvees, we never called anybody unpatriotic. And now when the next batch goes over without enough jammers, or up-armored kits, we won't call you unpatriotic.
Now we've called you incompetent-- we said you're incapable-- and we've said that you're derelict of your oversight duties-- but never Mr. Speaker have we called anybody in this house unpatriotic. Now Mr. Speaker--
[republican hatchet man interrupts AGAIN!]
The House is not in order!
[republican tries to issue a BS parliamentary inquiry, a favored tactic when a good Democrat works up a head of steam. Speaker asks Ryan if he will yield]
I will not yield.
Now let me speak to the resolution. This is very simple. It says two things. We support our troops and we do not support escalation. It's very simple. And here's why.
We have already done this. Mr. Speaker; we've already done this, we've already tried the escalation, and it HAS. NOT. WORKED. From November to January '05, we escalated by 18,000 troops, boots on the ground, and the number of daily attacks increased by 17%. From June to October of '05, we increased by 21,000 boots on the ground, and the number of dialy attacks increased by 29%. And from May to November of '06, 17,000 more boots on the ground, and the number of daily attacks increased by 80%.
This escalation has not worked, and it will not work. The number of insurgents has increased from 5,000 in '03 to between 20,000 and 30,000 in October '06.
So this is very simple. And I wanna make just a few more points Mr. Speaker, and one is this: with the last vote for the war, no matter which party you are in or how you voted, we assumed that the President and the Secretary of Defense would send our troops over there with the proper equipment. But with this escalation, Mr. Speaker, we know that the 21,500 troops that are going to go over there will not have the proper Humvee kits, up-armor for their Humvees, they won't have the proper jamming devices or enough of them, and the won't have have the number of trucks that they need. Period, dot. You now know it.
So if you vote against this resolution, you're voting to send our troops over there without the proper equipment. Before it could be excused. Because we trusted the president and assumed, but now we know.
And finally, Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot over the past couple days about the American Revolution, and the Civil War, and World War Two. Well Mr. Speaker, our President today is not Washington, he is not Lincoln, and he is not Roosevelt. And so I think our Republican colleagues should take the advice of the Secretary of Defense, and that is YOU GO TO WAR WITH THE PRESIDENT YOU HAVE. You don't go to war with the President you wish you had.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The co-dependent Congress ENABLES Bush.. America's future, and lives of millions, at stake as Congress pretends "no problem here."
President Bill Clinton was impeached, and Martha Steward convicted, for "lying." Yet it is now demonstrated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney LIED to America when President Bush, at the January 2003 State of the union speech (SOTU) spoke of the dire dangers of "uranium yellowcake ore from Niger for Iraq's WMD program." Mr. Bush KNEW at the time that that story had NO substance. Not only did the president LIE bold-faced to the American people about the non-existant fact for Iraq's non-existant WMD program, but the president vice president next orchestrated the "OUTING" of an undercover CIA agent to discredit her husband, who had vocally and publicly called attention to the evidence that refuted those alarming claims. Next President Bush told the American people "If anyone in this White House had anything to do with the illegal outing of a CIA agent, I will demand their resignation."
We know that this was another bold-faced lie; the president not only has NOT asked his staff involed in the CIA-outing to resign - - - but he and Vice President Cheney were at the very center of the scheme to "out" Valerie Plame to discredit her husband.
We remind, Bill Clinton was impeached, and Martha Stewart was convicted, for "LYING."
America's current president not only LIED America into a huge, deadly, and costly war in Iraq, but had his aides and staff OBSTRUCT JUSTICE to prevent that scandal from breaking wide open before the 2004 election.
=================================================
Dave Lindorff: Co-Dependent Congress Must Wake Up: The President Needs a Straitjacket and a Padded Cell
BuzzFlash Guest Contribution
by Dave Lindorff
Wed, 02/14/2007
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/791
It's time to simply admit the obvious: The president of the United States is crazy as a loon, and the Congress and the media are functioning as co-dependents as he runs the country off a cliff.
Bush says in his latest press conference that he is "certain" that Iran is providing "technically sophisticated" roadside bomb weapons to Iraqi insurgent forces to help them kill Americans.
He probably is "certain." But nobody else of consequence in the government is, and the evidence to support his claim is simply not there.
Shaped charges are not sophisticated. They can be made in a garage. A Navy engineer invented the technology in 1888. It was widely used in World Wars I and II and Vietnam, and was even provided by the British to the IRA in a botched sting operation that led to being disseminated around the world to every conceivable resistance and terror organization. Instructions on how to make these weapons are available on the Web. A high school student could do it in shop if the teacher wasn't looking.
On top of that, the people who are primarily responsible for killing Americans in Iraq are Sunnis, who are certainly not the beneficiaries of Iranian government assistance, since Sunnis are killing Shias, who are the ones Iran is close to.
None of this matters to Bush.
Why? Because he's crazy. Reality and Bush are wholly different worlds, people.
When you have a person who is off his nut in a position of authority, whether it is in your house, your office, driving a car, or running your country, you need to do something to prevent them from causing harm. It won't do to say, "It's too much trouble to confront him," or "He'll get angry if I challenge him."
This seems to be the attitude in Congress and the media. The Democrats, who could put the president in a richly deserved straitjacket, are afraid to take that step. The media are afraid the president and his crazy backers would howl if they pointed out how nutty he has become.
So they all let him rant on, as though he were making sense.
The problem is that this president is also the commander-in-chief. He has ordered three heavily armed (and nuclear-equipped) carrier battle groups to the Persian Gulf and is talking about "dealing" with Iran. We all know what that means. He wants to attack Iran and expand his disastrous war in the Middle East to put us at war with another 70 million people.
Experts are saying we can expect this to happen in mid March or April! They say this even though there are no facts that could justify such a criminal act.
But facts don't matter to this megalomaniac.
Co-dependency is a condition where people associated with a sick person enable that person to ruin not only their own lives, but also the lives of others, because of an inability to confront the sick person. It happens in families, and it is happening today to the American nation.
Co-dependency destroys families, and it has the potential now to destroy the lives of thousands of Americans, tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent Iranians, and perhaps America itself.
There is only one proper response to having a lunatic in the White House, and that is to get him out of there, and to prevent him from doing harm to himself and others. What ought to happen is Bush's medical team should have him declared incompetent. Since that is unlikely to happen, we're left with two other alternatives. One would be for the military leadership of the nation to recognize Bush's orders (should he order an attack on Iran) to be contrary to International Law and to disobey him. That seems unlikely, though it is to be profoundly hoped for.
The other is for Congress to recognize its co-dependent behavior and take action, filing impeachment bills and getting the process of impeachment hearings underway.
Since the president has clearly broken the law in the case of the National Security Agency spying he ordered, and since he has clearly abused his power and violated his oath of office with his signing statements, there is really no need for prolonged hearings. An impeachment panel could quickly vote out articles of impeachment on these two issues and send them to the full House for a vote. If they did this, I suspect they would find at least some honorable and patriotic Republicans voting with them. At that point, the issue could go to the Senate for trial. Meanwhile, the impeachment panel could continue with hearings into Bush's other crimes and misadventures: the lying about the Iraq War; the torture authorization; the violation of habeas corpus; the cover-up of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame; the lies to and obstruction of the 9-11 Commission; the abandonment of New Orleans to its fate during and after Hurricane Katrina; the war profiteering in Iraq; etc., etc.
The first step, however, is to acknowledge that the president has lost his mind and has become a dangerous psychopath.
We know that this was another bold-faced lie; the president not only has NOT asked his staff involed in the CIA-outing to resign - - - but he and Vice President Cheney were at the very center of the scheme to "out" Valerie Plame to discredit her husband.
We remind, Bill Clinton was impeached, and Martha Stewart was convicted, for "LYING."
America's current president not only LIED America into a huge, deadly, and costly war in Iraq, but had his aides and staff OBSTRUCT JUSTICE to prevent that scandal from breaking wide open before the 2004 election.
=================================================
Dave Lindorff: Co-Dependent Congress Must Wake Up: The President Needs a Straitjacket and a Padded Cell
BuzzFlash Guest Contribution
by Dave Lindorff
Wed, 02/14/2007
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/791
It's time to simply admit the obvious: The president of the United States is crazy as a loon, and the Congress and the media are functioning as co-dependents as he runs the country off a cliff.
Bush says in his latest press conference that he is "certain" that Iran is providing "technically sophisticated" roadside bomb weapons to Iraqi insurgent forces to help them kill Americans.
He probably is "certain." But nobody else of consequence in the government is, and the evidence to support his claim is simply not there.
Shaped charges are not sophisticated. They can be made in a garage. A Navy engineer invented the technology in 1888. It was widely used in World Wars I and II and Vietnam, and was even provided by the British to the IRA in a botched sting operation that led to being disseminated around the world to every conceivable resistance and terror organization. Instructions on how to make these weapons are available on the Web. A high school student could do it in shop if the teacher wasn't looking.
On top of that, the people who are primarily responsible for killing Americans in Iraq are Sunnis, who are certainly not the beneficiaries of Iranian government assistance, since Sunnis are killing Shias, who are the ones Iran is close to.
None of this matters to Bush.
Why? Because he's crazy. Reality and Bush are wholly different worlds, people.
When you have a person who is off his nut in a position of authority, whether it is in your house, your office, driving a car, or running your country, you need to do something to prevent them from causing harm. It won't do to say, "It's too much trouble to confront him," or "He'll get angry if I challenge him."
This seems to be the attitude in Congress and the media. The Democrats, who could put the president in a richly deserved straitjacket, are afraid to take that step. The media are afraid the president and his crazy backers would howl if they pointed out how nutty he has become.
So they all let him rant on, as though he were making sense.
The problem is that this president is also the commander-in-chief. He has ordered three heavily armed (and nuclear-equipped) carrier battle groups to the Persian Gulf and is talking about "dealing" with Iran. We all know what that means. He wants to attack Iran and expand his disastrous war in the Middle East to put us at war with another 70 million people.
Experts are saying we can expect this to happen in mid March or April! They say this even though there are no facts that could justify such a criminal act.
But facts don't matter to this megalomaniac.
Co-dependency is a condition where people associated with a sick person enable that person to ruin not only their own lives, but also the lives of others, because of an inability to confront the sick person. It happens in families, and it is happening today to the American nation.
Co-dependency destroys families, and it has the potential now to destroy the lives of thousands of Americans, tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent Iranians, and perhaps America itself.
There is only one proper response to having a lunatic in the White House, and that is to get him out of there, and to prevent him from doing harm to himself and others. What ought to happen is Bush's medical team should have him declared incompetent. Since that is unlikely to happen, we're left with two other alternatives. One would be for the military leadership of the nation to recognize Bush's orders (should he order an attack on Iran) to be contrary to International Law and to disobey him. That seems unlikely, though it is to be profoundly hoped for.
The other is for Congress to recognize its co-dependent behavior and take action, filing impeachment bills and getting the process of impeachment hearings underway.
Since the president has clearly broken the law in the case of the National Security Agency spying he ordered, and since he has clearly abused his power and violated his oath of office with his signing statements, there is really no need for prolonged hearings. An impeachment panel could quickly vote out articles of impeachment on these two issues and send them to the full House for a vote. If they did this, I suspect they would find at least some honorable and patriotic Republicans voting with them. At that point, the issue could go to the Senate for trial. Meanwhile, the impeachment panel could continue with hearings into Bush's other crimes and misadventures: the lying about the Iraq War; the torture authorization; the violation of habeas corpus; the cover-up of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame; the lies to and obstruction of the 9-11 Commission; the abandonment of New Orleans to its fate during and after Hurricane Katrina; the war profiteering in Iraq; etc., etc.
The first step, however, is to acknowledge that the president has lost his mind and has become a dangerous psychopath.
Democrats in Senate Earn their Pay! Propose "RESTORE CONSTITUTION ACT" of 2007 to PREVENT unlimited GESTAPO/KGB TORTURE and "disappearance" powers...
ALL WE CAN SAY IS, "IT'S ABOUT TIME!" that official Washington - the Senate, the House, the corrupt, servile DC press corps, the movers and shakers inside and outside of government - called this disgusting pig of a "MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT" for what it is - a NOT EVEN thinly disguised attempt to set up the US presidency as a PEACETIME KGB or GESTAPO here in America.
Actually, the PRECEDENT for this atrocious bill long predates either the Nazi Party in Germany, or the Stalinist regime in Russia; that would be the chattel SLAVERY SYSTEM here in America, which of course AUTOMATICALLY DENIED _any_ human rights to slaves, escaped slaves, or even free men in other states who, once they were KIDNAPPED by pro-slavery authorities, immediately VANISHED from the eyes of the law, except in those rare cases where public indignation in the non-slave states demanded a kidnap victim's release.
UNLIMITED god-like powers of ARREST, DETENTION, ENSLAVEMENT, TORTURE, and MURDER.... they are all there, both in the draconian GESTAPO-esque "MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT," and in America's long, sordid history of the CHATTEL SLAVE TRADE, which used (in today's terms) BILLION DOLLAR PROFITS, BIBLE-THUMPING, and "MORAL VALUES!" rhetoric to JUSTIFY CRUELTY, WARS, SADISM, TORTURE, and MURDER.
(Note: The US Marine Corps hym sings of "fighting for right AND FREEDOM... from the halls of Montezuma to the SHORES OF TRIPOLI." That would be Tripoli, North Africa (current Libya), where President Thomas Jefferson sent the US Navy and Marines to fight against the ENSLAVEMENT of American sailors by the Barbary pirates fighting out of the fortress at Derna (Tripoli). But the FLIP-SIDE of that valorous history is, that at the SAME TIME America's Navy was "FIGHTING FOR RIGHT AND FREEDOM" in NORTH Africa, the US Navy and Merchant Marine were engaged in, and ACCELERATING, THE SLAVE TRADE from WEST AFRICAN PORTS. The slave trade, of course, DEMANDED A CONSTANT SUPPLY OF FRESH SLAVES - which were PRODUCED BY SLAVE RAIDS, i.e. a CONSTANT STATE OF WAR by the slave-exporting Kings of the coast against their WEAKER, DEFENSELESS NEIGHBORS in the interior. It has been estimated that for every ONE SLAVE DELIVERED to New World ports, THREE Africans DIED in transit, in captivity, or in the initial slave raids. IF the transatlantic slave raid delivered over three million slaves to the Americas, that would mean as many as ten, eleven, or TWELVE MILLION AFRICANS PERISHED at the hands of New World EUROPEAN and AMERICAN slavers - WITH THE FULL COOPERATION and COMPLICITY of the "fight for right and FREEDOM" United States Navy and Marine corps.)
===================================
Bill Would Restore Detainees' Rights, Define 'Combatant'
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 14, 2007; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/13/AR2007021301163.html?nav=rss_politics
A group of Senate Democrats introduced legislation yesterday that would restore habeas corpus rights to all detainees in U.S. custody and would narrowly define what it means to be an "enemy combatant" against the United States, a measure designed to challenge laws ushered in by the Republican-controlled Congress last year.
The bill, titled the "Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007," strikes at the core of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 by giving detainees access to U.S. courts. It was introduced by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Detainee Policy
Bush acknowledged the existence of secret CIA prisons abroad Sept. 6, 2006, as he called for the authority to try prisoners by military commissions. On Jan. 18, 2007, the Pentagon released its rules for trying detainees.
• Analysis: President Shifts Argument
CIA'S SECRET PRISONS
Washington Post reporter Dana Priest reported on Nov. 2 that the CIA operates a network of secret prisons where it holds terror suspects. Priest was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on April 17 for her beat reporting on the CIA and the War on Terror.
• From the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Summary of the High Value Terrorist Detainee Program (pdf)
GUANTANAMO DETAINEES
Detainee Database
View the largest list of names at Guantanamo prison made public thus far.
TRANSCRIPTS
President Bush delivers remarks on terrorism, Sept. 6, 2006.
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The bill would also prevent the executive branch from making blanket determinations about who is an enemy combatant and would restrict the president's authority to interpret when certain human rights standards apply to detainees. The legislation would limit the label "enemy combatant" to a person "who directly participates in hostilities in a zone of active combat against the United States" or who took part in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Should such language become law, it could change the status of numerous detainees who were picked up in U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
The bill would also restore to the detainees numerous rights they lost under the Military Commissions Act, including the right, under a habeas corpus petition, to challenge their detention in federal court.
"I take a backseat to no one when it comes to protecting the country from terrorists," Dodd said in an e-mail statement yesterday. "But there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. . . . In taking away their legal rights, the rights first codified in our country's Constitution, we're taking away our own moral compass, as well."
The Military Commissions Act was originally designed to fix problems in the wartime trial process for detainees in U.S. custody after the Supreme Court struck down the Bush administration's first set of rules. But the act also denied access to U.S. courts to those accused of being foreign enemy combatants.
In a panel discussion Monday night after the screening of an HBO movie about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a leading proponent of the Military Commissions Act, said he stands behind the existing law and believes that it will stand up to Supreme Court scrutiny.
The newly proposed legislation, however, has the potential to undercut last year's law before challenges reach the Supreme Court. There is bipartisan support in Congress for restoring the habeas corpus rights of detainees, many of whom have filed court cases with the help of civilian lawyers.
Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First, said the new bill would remedy several legal problems her organization has identified in the Military Commissions Act, particularly in the area of habeas corpus rights. She said the definition of "enemy combatant" is "hugely important" because it would draw a line between actual combat and the Bush administration's ambiguous "global war on terror."
"It would go to the question of whether the whole of our counterterrorism effort is going to be considered an actual and legal war," Massimino said. "Congress hasn't taken that issue head-on."
Actually, the PRECEDENT for this atrocious bill long predates either the Nazi Party in Germany, or the Stalinist regime in Russia; that would be the chattel SLAVERY SYSTEM here in America, which of course AUTOMATICALLY DENIED _any_ human rights to slaves, escaped slaves, or even free men in other states who, once they were KIDNAPPED by pro-slavery authorities, immediately VANISHED from the eyes of the law, except in those rare cases where public indignation in the non-slave states demanded a kidnap victim's release.
UNLIMITED god-like powers of ARREST, DETENTION, ENSLAVEMENT, TORTURE, and MURDER.... they are all there, both in the draconian GESTAPO-esque "MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT," and in America's long, sordid history of the CHATTEL SLAVE TRADE, which used (in today's terms) BILLION DOLLAR PROFITS, BIBLE-THUMPING, and "MORAL VALUES!" rhetoric to JUSTIFY CRUELTY, WARS, SADISM, TORTURE, and MURDER.
(Note: The US Marine Corps hym sings of "fighting for right AND FREEDOM... from the halls of Montezuma to the SHORES OF TRIPOLI." That would be Tripoli, North Africa (current Libya), where President Thomas Jefferson sent the US Navy and Marines to fight against the ENSLAVEMENT of American sailors by the Barbary pirates fighting out of the fortress at Derna (Tripoli). But the FLIP-SIDE of that valorous history is, that at the SAME TIME America's Navy was "FIGHTING FOR RIGHT AND FREEDOM" in NORTH Africa, the US Navy and Merchant Marine were engaged in, and ACCELERATING, THE SLAVE TRADE from WEST AFRICAN PORTS. The slave trade, of course, DEMANDED A CONSTANT SUPPLY OF FRESH SLAVES - which were PRODUCED BY SLAVE RAIDS, i.e. a CONSTANT STATE OF WAR by the slave-exporting Kings of the coast against their WEAKER, DEFENSELESS NEIGHBORS in the interior. It has been estimated that for every ONE SLAVE DELIVERED to New World ports, THREE Africans DIED in transit, in captivity, or in the initial slave raids. IF the transatlantic slave raid delivered over three million slaves to the Americas, that would mean as many as ten, eleven, or TWELVE MILLION AFRICANS PERISHED at the hands of New World EUROPEAN and AMERICAN slavers - WITH THE FULL COOPERATION and COMPLICITY of the "fight for right and FREEDOM" United States Navy and Marine corps.)
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Bill Would Restore Detainees' Rights, Define 'Combatant'
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 14, 2007; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/13/AR2007021301163.html?nav=rss_politics
A group of Senate Democrats introduced legislation yesterday that would restore habeas corpus rights to all detainees in U.S. custody and would narrowly define what it means to be an "enemy combatant" against the United States, a measure designed to challenge laws ushered in by the Republican-controlled Congress last year.
The bill, titled the "Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007," strikes at the core of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 by giving detainees access to U.S. courts. It was introduced by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Detainee Policy
Bush acknowledged the existence of secret CIA prisons abroad Sept. 6, 2006, as he called for the authority to try prisoners by military commissions. On Jan. 18, 2007, the Pentagon released its rules for trying detainees.
• Analysis: President Shifts Argument
CIA'S SECRET PRISONS
Washington Post reporter Dana Priest reported on Nov. 2 that the CIA operates a network of secret prisons where it holds terror suspects. Priest was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on April 17 for her beat reporting on the CIA and the War on Terror.
• From the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Summary of the High Value Terrorist Detainee Program (pdf)
GUANTANAMO DETAINEES
Detainee Database
View the largest list of names at Guantanamo prison made public thus far.
TRANSCRIPTS
President Bush delivers remarks on terrorism, Sept. 6, 2006.
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The bill would also prevent the executive branch from making blanket determinations about who is an enemy combatant and would restrict the president's authority to interpret when certain human rights standards apply to detainees. The legislation would limit the label "enemy combatant" to a person "who directly participates in hostilities in a zone of active combat against the United States" or who took part in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Should such language become law, it could change the status of numerous detainees who were picked up in U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
The bill would also restore to the detainees numerous rights they lost under the Military Commissions Act, including the right, under a habeas corpus petition, to challenge their detention in federal court.
"I take a backseat to no one when it comes to protecting the country from terrorists," Dodd said in an e-mail statement yesterday. "But there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. . . . In taking away their legal rights, the rights first codified in our country's Constitution, we're taking away our own moral compass, as well."
The Military Commissions Act was originally designed to fix problems in the wartime trial process for detainees in U.S. custody after the Supreme Court struck down the Bush administration's first set of rules. But the act also denied access to U.S. courts to those accused of being foreign enemy combatants.
In a panel discussion Monday night after the screening of an HBO movie about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a leading proponent of the Military Commissions Act, said he stands behind the existing law and believes that it will stand up to Supreme Court scrutiny.
The newly proposed legislation, however, has the potential to undercut last year's law before challenges reach the Supreme Court. There is bipartisan support in Congress for restoring the habeas corpus rights of detainees, many of whom have filed court cases with the help of civilian lawyers.
Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First, said the new bill would remedy several legal problems her organization has identified in the Military Commissions Act, particularly in the area of habeas corpus rights. She said the definition of "enemy combatant" is "hugely important" because it would draw a line between actual combat and the Bush administration's ambiguous "global war on terror."
"It would go to the question of whether the whole of our counterterrorism effort is going to be considered an actual and legal war," Massimino said. "Congress hasn't taken that issue head-on."
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