Assault and Batteries
High-tech horror: Widespread cell-phone violence against women in Iraq and the Congo.
by Harkavy
The Night the Old Politics Died
The old politics died on May 6, 2008, as the predictable and inevitable happened and the voters said no to business as usual.
The voters said no to the most phony and fraudulent proposal in memory for a gas tax cut that would never happen, that would profit the oil companies that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) falsely said she was fighting with it, that would do nothing for the people she falsely claimed she was helping with it.
Hillary Plays the Crazy Card
In this protracted and often dispiriting prelude to the general election, few remarks have been as poorly chosen as Senator Hillary Clinton’s threat to “totally obliterate” Iran. What she obliterated with just those two words were her own boasts of superior diplomatic experience—and she managed at the same time to tar America’s international image with all the subtlety of the man she hopes to replace.
Joe Conason
McGovern, former Clinton backer, urges her to drop out
McGovern said Wednesday he has decided to endorse Barack Obama.
After watching the returns from the North Carolina and Indiana primaries Tuesday night, McGovern says it’s virtually impossible for Clinton to win the nomination.
McGovern says he is calling former President Clinton to tell him of the decision and adds that he remains close friends with the Clintons.
There’s something wrong with us.
BOB HERBERT
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is no doubt (and regrettably) a big issue in the presidential campaign. But what we’ve seen over the past week is major media overkill — Jeremiah Wright all day and all night. It’s like watching the clips of a car wreck again and again.
The Clintons and the ‘War on Obama’
Even before the first votes were cast, Hillary Clinton’s campaign had prepared guilt-by-association attack themes that would raise doubts about Barack Obama’s patriotism. After a halting beginning, this “War on Obama” has finally begun to click.
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Blasts Clinton, Backs Obama
The pig, which was led above the crowd from lines held on the ground, displayed the words “Don’t be led to the slaughter” and a cartoon of Uncle Sam wielding two bloody cleavers. The other side read “Fear builds walls.”
The underside of the pig simply read “Obama” with a checked ballot box alongside.
Obama is better-equipped to lead country through change it craves
By Chris Satullo
Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist
If you’re a Pennsylvania Democrat and today dawned with you still struggling, it could mean one of several things:
You could be one of those terminally indecisive people, for whom even ordering at Applebee’s becomes an hour-long agony.
More likely, it means you’re an earnest citizen who feels how momentous this choice is - but not a person who can resolve it through identity politics, the tug of “first woman” or “first black.”
Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
The Sad, True McCain Record on Veterans
McCain Refuses to Support Sen. Jim Webb’s and Chuck Hagel’s new GI Bill.
The bill, officially called the “Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007″, would establish a program of educational assistance for members of the Armed Forces who serve in the Armed Forces after September 11, 2001.
Sen. Jim Webb has called on McCain to sign on as a co-sponsor to his GI bill
The bill has 51 co-sponsors – including 9 Republicans – but needs 60 co-sponsors to make it filibuster proof.
McCain Voted Against $19 Billion for Military Hospitals, Choosing Tax Cuts for Wealthiest Earners over Veterans.
In February 2006, McCain voted against an amendment that would have provided for at least $19 billion for military health facilities, paid for by eliminating tax cuts for the wealthiest earners.
*Senate Amendment 2735, Amendment failed.
McCain Voted Against Legislation to Provide $2.8 Billion For Medical Care for Veterans.
McCain voted against a 2006 Democratic amendment that would have provided $2.8 billion to increase veterans’ medical care.
*Senate Amendment 149, Amendment failed.
McCain Voted Against Establishing $1 Billion Trust Fund to Provide Improvements to Military and Veterans’ Health Facilities
McCain voted against an Amendment to establish a $1 billion trust fund to provide improvements to health facilities that treat veterans and military personnel paid for by allowing dividends and capital gains tax breaks, for those with incomes greater than $1 million to lapse on December 31, 2006.
*Senate Amendment 2735
McCain Chooses Corporations Over Veterans, Voting Against Adding $1.5 billion to Veterans’ Medical Services in 2007 Budget by Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes.
McCain voted against an Amendment offered by Democrats to increase medical services funding to veterans by $1.5 billion in 2007, to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes.
*Senate Amendment 3007
McCain Voted Against Mandatory Funding of $6.9 Billion in 2007 Budget and $104 Billion Over Five Years for Veterans’ Health Care.
McCain voted against a Democratic amendment to provide a mandatory stream of funding of $6.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2007 and $104 billion over five years for veterans’ health care; paid for by restoring the pre-2001 top tax rate for incomes over $1 million and closing various corporate tax loopholes.
Senate Amendment 3141
September 2007: McCain voted against the Webb amendment calling for adequate troop rest between deployments.
The legislation would have provided minimum periods between deployment of units and members of the Armed Forces deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
*Senate Amendment 2909
April 2006: McCain one of only 13 Senators to vote against $430 million for Medical Services for the Department of Veteran Affairs for outpatient care and treatment for veterans.
Despite his vote against, it passed overwhelmingly, 84-13 (3 not voting). All 13 voting against were Republicans.
*Senate Amendment 3642
October 2003: McCain voted against an amendment offered by Senator Dodd that called for an additional $322 million for safety equipment for troops in Iraq.
*Senate Amendment 1817
April 2003: McCain voted against an amendment that would have provided more than $1 billion for National Guard and Reserve equipment in Iraq related to a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests.
*Senate Amendment 452
August 2001: McCain voted against increasing the amount available for medical care for veterans by $650 million.
*Senate Amendment 1218
Senator Clinton Misled Press About Penn.
He’s Still Very Much a Part of the Campaign. It was a Cynical Ploy to Placate the Unions by Changing His Title, But Not Firing Him.Mr. Penn “is still going to be very much involved,” a senior campaign official said.
The Democratic Party’s Fascinating Squalor
“In short, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, is systematically delegitimizing the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. I have never seen anything like it — and it is genuinely fascinating in all its paradoxical squalor.”
The Last Wish of Martin Luther King
Dr. King showed most profoundly that in an interdependent world, lasting power grows against the grain of violence, not with it. Both the cold war and South African apartheid ended to the strains of “We Shall Overcome,” defying all preparations for Armageddon. The civil rights movement remains a model for new democracy, sadly neglected in its own birthplace. In Iraq today, we are stuck on the Vietnam model instead. There is no more salient or neglected field of study than the relationship between power and violence.
We recoil from nonviolence at our peril. Dr. King rightly saw it at the heart of democracy. Our nation is a great cathedral of votes — votes not only for Congress and for president, but also votes on Supreme Court decisions and on countless juries. Votes govern the boards of great corporations and tiny charities alike. Visibly and invisibly, everything runs on votes. And every vote is nothing but a piece of nonviolence.
10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don’t):
1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”2
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3
4. McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”4
5. The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.5
6. He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.6
7. Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”7
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8
9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”9
10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10 John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be.
Sources:
Randi Rhodes Suspended for . . . What!?!
Since Rhodes was not doing the routine on air, why did Air America decide it had to censor her in a very public fashion? When the notoriously off-color Stern was fined by the FCC, it was, the agency explained, for using unacceptable language on air, according to the Smoking Gun.
Carter hints at support for Obama
“My children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama,” he said at a news conference, according to the Nigerian newspaper This Day. “As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for, but I leave you to make that guess.”
The Audacity of Hopelessness
After promising a cakewalk to the nomination — “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November — she was routed by an insurgency.
The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would “be over by Feb. 5,” Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year’s.
HILLARY CLINTON HEAVY INTO RIGHTWING RELIGIOUS POWER CULT
Clinton’s prayer group, the Fellowship, Prays To Jesus For The Elite To Rule The World. Aka “the Family”, it is a network dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them are recruited at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes.
HOW TO TELL CLINTON AND OBAMA APART
Favors healthcare individual mandates that would help insurance companies and banks but not citizens
Has the most number of foreign lobbyist contributors
Is even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain
Is most popular with K Street lobbyists
Has received the most funds from oil industry
Has received the most funds from health industry
Gave most number of evasive answers (250) to congressional inquiries
Submitted the largest false campaign finance report
So you wanna talk about nominees and drugs?
1994 - Writing in the Oct. 9 London Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote that Arkansas was a “major point for the transshipment of drugs” during the 1980s
From a police videotape of Roger Clinton during a 1984 cocaine sale, as reported in the just out Partners in Power by Roger Morris: “Got to get some for my brother. He’s got a nose like a vacuum cleaner.”
Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary.
Jan 20, 2006
AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) — I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It’s about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.
Take Action: Tell the media to live up to King’s dream
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther
King, Jr. - a tragic end to a life spent moving the nation
towards racial justice and reconciliation.
But in the last few weeks, instead of building on his legacy,
the news media has been in a feeding frenzy which plays on our
worst fears and demeans the prophetic tradition of the black
church.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright has preached for over 3,000 hours in the
course of his career, but the cable news networks have used a
handful of 30-second clips, often taken completely out of
context, to exploit racial fears and further divide this nation.
I just sent a message to these networks, telling them to honor
King’s legacy by covering racial issues in a way worthy of his
dream. Will you join me?
Just click HERE.
YES THEY CAN
Today is the 40th anniversary of the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and I want to share a video that reveals how far we’ve come and how much this campaign owes to Dr. King’s legacy.Students at a high school in the Bronx, who had no real interest in their government, have found new hope. They were surprised by their own excitement and engagement, but to me, they embody so many reasons why Barack and I decided to get into this campaign.
It’s truly moving to see young people inspired by a political leader — someone who gives them hope and reminds them that they can be anything they want to be if they work hard.
Watch what these kids have to say about politics and race in this country
It isn’t the homecoming they planned
An Ohio town never gave up hope that a young soldier abducted in Iraq almost four years ago would come back safely. Now it grieves after his remains are identified.
Batavia is the next community over from mine. I knew four years ago that Matt wasn’t coming back, but the Bush administration let the family hold onto hope for political reasons because the election was imminent. Is it a coincidence that now they find his remains? I am sad for his family. At least they don’t have to wonder any more.
The Shock Doctrine
Naomi Klein
Fast Facts, Shocks and their Aftermath from the Shock Doctrine Short Film
Chile, 1973
* 50,000 tortured
* 80,000 imprisoned
* Public spending cut by 50%
* Incomes for the rich up 83%
* 45% of population in poverty
Wars – Falklands War, 1982
* 910 people die
* Thatcher’s popularity doubles
* She privatizes gas, steel, airlines, telephones
* She declares war on unions
* Thousands are injured
* Unemployment triples
* Number of poor increases by 100%
Massacres
* China 1989 – hundreds killed
* Thousands jailed and tortured
* China becomes sweatshop to the world
* China embraces “free market” capitalism
* Factory wages: $1/day
Russia, 1993
* Yeltsin attacks parliament
* Hundreds killed
* Parliament burned
* Opposition arrested
* 72 million impoverished
* 17 new billionaires created
Terrorist Attacks – New York, 2001
* Attacks launch “War on Terror.” It is privatized.
* US spy agencies outsource 70% of their budgets
* Pentagon increases budget for contractors by $137 billion/year
* Department of Homeland Security spends $130 billion on private contractors
Invasions – Iraq, 2003
* The most privatized war in modern history
* US decrees 200 state companies will be privatized
* Hundreds of thousands killed
* 4 million displaced
Natural Disasters – Sri Lanka, 2004
* 35,000 dead
* Coastline handed over to hotels and industry
* Nearly 1 million displaced
* Fishing people forbidden to rebuild homes by the sea
Leahy: Clinton Should Drop Out
“Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to,” he said in the statement. “As far as the delegate count and the interests of a Democratic victory in November go, there is not a very good reason for drawing this out. But as I have said before, that is a decision that only she can make.”
Hillary’s Prayer: Hillary Clinton’s Religion and Politics
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection.
The Fellowship’s long-term goal is “a leadership led by God–leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit.” According to the Fellowship’s archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship’s God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators.
More on the Fellowship’s leader, Doug Coe, from Harper’s via DKos.
The Obama version of ‘we shall overcome’
Before he did it last week in Philadelphia, no one could have imagined that Barack Obama would sing the blues so powerfully. With the same soul power that bluesman Albert King once described, Obama brought the grits. He revealed an inner music of spirituality, of confrontation, a statement of aching tragic depth and resilient affirmation.
Sleeping (sitting)(speaking)(conspiring) with the enemy…
How low can you go?
Scaife “helped fund the Arkansas Project, which ultimately led to the impeachment proceedings of President Bill Clinton.”
The Right Choice?
The conservative case for Barack Obama
by Andrew J. Bacevich
Barack Obama is no conservative. Yet if he wins the Democratic nomination, come November principled conservatives may well find themselves voting for the senator from Illinois. Given the alternatives—and the state of the conservative movement—they could do worse.
Dinner With Barack
From Barack’s Campaign Manager:
You’ve heard about all of these political fundraising dinners, hosted by Washington lobbyists and filled with representatives of special interests.
Contributions like these are at the root of what’s wrong with politics. And John McCain and Hillary Clinton have built campaigns fueled by them.
But our campaign is different.
In February alone, more than 94% of our donors gave in amounts of $200 or less. Meanwhile, campaign finance reports show that donations of $200 or less make up just 13% of Senator McCain’s total campaign funds, and only 26% of Senator Clinton’s.
Our funding comes from a movement of more than one million people giving whatever they can afford.
And in the next week, four supporters will be selected for a new kind of fundraising dinner.
Make a donation in any amount between now and 11:59 pm EDT on Monday, March 31st, and you could join Barack and three other supporters for an intimate dinner for five.
We’re reserving two of those seats for new donors like you. If you’ve ever thought about making a donation to join our campaign, now is the time:
https://donate.barackobama.com/dinner
This movement is changing the way campaigns are funded.
More than one million individual donors have demonstrated that this election is about more than a candidate — it’s about each of us having a personal stake in the future of American politics.
Meanwhile, Senator McCain has raised more than 70% of his total campaign funds from high-dollar donors giving $1,000 or more. Senator Clinton has raised 60% of her funds from $1,000-and-up donors. And both Senator McCain and Senator Clinton have accepted millions of dollars from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs.
Refusing to accept donations from lobbyists and special interests has allowed this campaign to answer only to ordinary Americans like you. And this dinner will be an opportunity for you to sit down with Barack and your fellow supporters and talk about the issues that matter in your life and in your community.
Get the kind of treatment that John McCain and Hillary Clinton reserve for special interests — make a donation in the next week, and you could share your story and your ideas with Barack in person:
https://donate.barackobama.com/dinner
With every single donation, we’re building a movement to change American politics. Help the movement grow, and own a piece of this campaign today.
Thanks for your support,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
Lie much? Depends on what the meaning of ‘running from sniper fire’ is…
Clinton retreats under fire from sniper story
During a speech last Monday, she said: ”I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down.”
