How to strike fear into Republican Hearts

It just takes two words...

or actually one name...

DAVE OBEY

THEY BETTER BE AFRAID...BE VERY AFRAID......

Why? Because President Bush submitted his budget today and now the control of the house is in the hands of the Democrats and the

APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

is chaired by the meanes bulldog in the pack.

Dave has spent over 30 years in Congress and he's spent the last six years being kicked around, ignored, marginalized, insulted and steam-rolled by the Republican majority. Now, Dave is Chairman of the Appropriations Committee...can you say PAYBACK TIME?

I met Dave Obey over 30 years ago and think I know him as ...ummmm...fiesty....actually as pretty tough customer when you piss him off....

Bush submitted his budget today and now it gets turned over to Obey...it's his sandbox and the Repubs are in for a rough time. Obey doesn't put up with lies or b. s. and this budget has a lot of it...from the New York Times

The proposed basic budget for the Defense Department is $481.1 billion, a 62 percent increase over 2001, Mr. Bush’s first year as president, and an increase of $49 billion over what Congress provided for this fiscal year. But the figure does not include more than $93 billion in supplemental money in this fiscal year and about $145 billion in the next fiscal year for the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.

Or, if you want to see just how phoney Bush's numbers really are, take a look at this from The National Journal:

It is also unthinkable that the Bush administration does not intend to fully fund the cost of activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, in light of the statements the White House has made in recent weeks excoriating anyone who dared to have such thoughts, no one should assume the president won't be first in line to make sure the additional spending is provided.

However, the FY08 Bush budget only includes a $50 billion placeholder for Iraq and Afghanistan in FY09 and nothing for FY10 through FY12. The White House has already made it clear that additional spending will likely be required.

Does anybody really think that Obey is going to let Bush get away with that?

Pass the popcorn.....

We'll leave Iraq!

I grew up in the heyday of Mad Magazine and, like my peers of the time, damn near memorized every issue. One I particularly enjoyed was an issue that spoofed college fight songs and cheers. One spoofy cheer I remember went something like:

WE’LL GET A TOUCHDOWN!
WE’LL GET A TOUCHDOWN!

To which the student body would reply:

WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!
WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!

I thought about that in terms of a current “cheer” for Democrats

WE’LL LEAVE EYE-RACK!
WE’LL LEAVE EYE-RACK! (spelling changed for ..poetic? reasons)

To which the administration replys:

WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!
WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!

Just how can I make such a claim? Because I remembered something that came up early in the invasion of Iraq and has since been forgotten, glossed over or just plain covered up.

We’re building “enduring bases” in Iraq. There has been some quibbling over just what “enduring” means but apparently, it means much more than just a tent city and judging from what little information there is, these are a long, long way from “tent city”. Here’s what Mother Jones Magazine had to say about it all the way back in March of 2005:

When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters last December that he expected U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for another four years, he was merely confirming what any visitor to the country could have surmised. The omnipresence of the giant defense contractor KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root), the shipments of concrete and other construction materials, and the transformation of decrepit Iraqi military bases into fortified American enclaves—complete with Pizza Huts and DVD stores—are just the most obvious signs that the United States has been digging in for the long haul.

Even then, Mother Jones noted the contradiction of “withdrawing troops” versus what was actually happening on the ground

It's a far cry from administration assurances after the invasion that the troops could start withdrawing from Iraq as early as the fall of 2003. And it is hardly consistent with a prediction by Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, that the troops would be out of Iraq within months, or with Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi's guess that the U.S. occupation would last two years.

Take, for example, Camp Victory North, a sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport, which the U.S. military seized just before the ouster of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Over the past year, KBR contractors have built a small American city where about 14,000 troops are living, many hunkered down inside sturdy, wooden, air-conditioned bungalows called SEA (for Southeast Asia) huts, replicas of those used by troops in Vietnam. There's a Burger King, a gym, the country's biggest PX—and, of course, a separate compound for KBR workers, who handle both construction and logistical support.

This was, of course (naturally) just after Donald Rumsfeld said on February 17 of the same year:

2/17/2005, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense globalsecurity
"We have no intention, at the present time, of putting permanent bases in Iraq.'
"Permanent bases? We have no idea"

source: zfacts: http://zfacts.com/p/263.html

The Christian Science Monitor said that although information was hard to come by, they could glean this in all the way back on 2004.
But a dozen is the number of so-called "enduring bases" located by John Pike, director of GlobalSecurities.org. His military affairs website gives their names. They include, for example, Camp Victory at the Baghdad airfield and Camp Renegade in Kirkuk. The Chicago Tribune last March said US engineers are constructing 14 "enduring bases," but Mr. Pike hasn't located two of them.
Note the terminology "enduring" bases. That's Pentagon-speak for long-term encampments - not necessarily permanent, but not just a tent on a wood platform either. It all suggests a planned indefinite stay on Iraqi soil that will cost US taxpayers for years to come.

Combine that information with the information on the incredibly huge U. S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and there isn’t much doubt that our leaders intend to stay in Iraq for quite a while.

Maybe this “surge” crap is really a subterfuge. Maybe the real game is to keep 50,000 or 75,000 troops stationed in Iraq permanently in these “enduring bases”.

Maybe I should just go back to reading my MAD MAGAZINES.

Rupert comes clean...well, sort of.......

After you wipe the sarcasm off your screen, read this snippet courtesy of Juan Cole at Informed Comment:Also credit to ePluribus Media

Murdoch was asked if News Corp. had managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq. His answer?

"No, I don't think so. We tried [...] We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East...but we have been very critical of his execution."

Let me repeat this: "We Tried!"

After hearing this confession, how can anyone ever again take seriously Fox News or any of Murdoch's other instruments of bias? How can News Corp. continue to pretend that they are "fair and balanced?" How can any other media company exhibit the slightest expression of respect or patronization

That's a confession and outright lie all in one concise sentence, Rupert. The only way you've been critical of the execution of the war is by criticizing Democrats......Nevertheless, the admission is quite breath-taking for Fox...

Juan riff's on those quotes in a way that resonates deeply with me, and I suspect, with the vast majority of our local party members. The snippets:

"Murdoch's remarks are a good reason for which the news conglomerates should be broken up so that a wider range of views can be published..."

and the "money shot"::

Murdoch's media have done more to cheapen American values and drive the country toward fascistic ways of thinking than anything since the McCarthy period in the 1950s. The airwaves belong to the public, and this man only licenses them. When will the public take them back and use them for purposes of which Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin would have approved?"

A lot has been written in other blogs, and truthfully other blogs which are far more attuned to the legal aspects of Journalism and First Amendment rights than I, about reinstituting the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE which was summarily wiped out during the Reagan Administration. Appparently , the doctrine was originally upheld by the Supreme Court according to Wiki:

In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC [1] (1969), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine, under challenges that it violated the First Amendment. Although similar laws had been deemed unconstitutional when applied to newspapers, the Court ruled that radio stations could be regulated in this way because of the limited nature of the public airwave spectrum.


There has been a lot of talk about reinstating the doctrine, especially from Dennis Kucinich,who seems to be making it "his" cause, and I recall seeing something about a version of it going through Congress last week, but will it end the abuses of Fox News? Of Rush Limbaugh? Of Michael Savage?

Give me your thoughts on the matter.

Oh-oh....

Take a look at this from the article by Andrew Cockburn over at Counterpunch

Last week, Tehran reminded us of its ability to make life unpleasant for US forces in Iraq by hosting Moqtada al Sadr for a high profile visit, in the course of which he obligingly pledged that his militia, the Mahdi army, would retaliate for any American attack on Iran. His spokesman quoted him as telling his hosts "If any Islamic state, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is attacked, the Mahdi Army would fight inside and outside Iraq."

Okay, so if the United States is foolish enought to attack Iran, Al Sadr would either join the Iranian forces against our troops in Iran, or, in the case that Bush and his merry band of elves decided to us just air power against Iran, Sadr would order his troops (militia) to attack US troops in Iraq...

I read that pretty much as a lose/lose proposition for our side.

Also...do you consider it odd that the meeting between Al Sadr and the Iranian government went unreported in the U. S. Press? That mainstream media didn't say much either.

A troubling bit of information comes from Glenn Greenwald over at Unclaimed Territory.

His post details the appearances of Edwards and Clinton at the AIPAC meeting in New York. Here's what's troubling as Glenn describes it

Then, the Sun emphasized how vital it was for presidential candidates to attract contributions from New York Jewish groups generally, and how such contributions (as is true for all interest groups) are available only to those candidates who support those groups' so-called "pro-Israel" agenda: A Democratic political consultant who worked on President Clinton 's re-election campaign, Hank Sheinkopf, noted that the Aipac dinner always draws a parade of politicians.

New York is the ATM for American politicians. Large amounts of money come from the Jewish community," he said. "If you're running for president and you want dollars from that group, you need to show that you're interested in the issue that matters most to them."

And, according to the Sun, what do presidential candidates have to do in order to ensure access to "the ATM for American politicians" -- the "large amounts of money from the Jewish community" in New York? What is the "issue that matters most to them"? Belligerence towards Iran:

Indeed, how to deal with Iran is likely to be the next majority foreign policy conundrum the 2008 presidential candidates face.While Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton have different positions on how to deal with the Iraq war, each has used harsh language on Iran.

The Sun also highlighted how vital (what it calls) "the circuit of influential Jewish donors" is to Hillary Clinton specifically:Mrs. Clinton, who has opted out of the public campaign financing system, has tapped into the circuit of influential Jewish donors for years and has strong support in the community. A spokesman for Aipac, Joshua Block, said yesterday that the senator and former first lady has "an extremely consistent and strong record of support on issues that are important to the pro- Israel community.""She is an extraordinary leader on those issues in the United States Senate," he said


So....this then becomes "the house that Jack Built"...in American politics.
You need mega dollars to run

Those have the money also have "issues"

To get the money from those who have it you need to make their issues YOUR issues.

If you get elected, THEIR ISSUES which you have made YOUR ISSUES become NATIONAL ISSUES.

NATIONAL ISSUES BECOME POLICY

And sometimes, policy becomes war......

Tell me again why we don't need public financing of political campaigns. McCain-Feingold was watered down so badly that it was ineffective in taking big $$$ out of the political system. I'm not sure that's there is any way short of public financing that we can be assured that our politician are elected on the basis of their positions and not on the positions of those who contribute to their campaigns.

Some time ago a District Federal Court ruled that Money=free speech. Bullshit!

Scientists: "Oops, My bad!

Thaat's pretty much the summary of the findings of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

A summary of the conclusions are that:

1. Global warming IS taking place at a rapid pace
2. Humans ARE primarily responsible.
3. Warming will continue for 100s of years
4. The effects are goiing to be fewer but more devastating hurricanes, longer and more devasting heat waves, droughts and a rise in sea levels....

There isn't much that can be done at this point but slowing emissions will perhaps slow the effects.....

I talked with a meteorologist today who, like most good scientists, has tried to stay above the political fray and rely on the science to settle the matter. Today, he considered the matter settled. I asked whether he thought that the argument would now be about whether it's actually "worth the effort" to try to mitigate the change. He was very unscientific in his answer but profound nevertheless: "Not doing anything is like saying "See ya in hell!" He's right I think.

But even as the words of the report start to spread around the world, the "deniers" are busy at work. Look at this article from The Guardian. It seems that our favorite right wing "think tank", The American Enterprise Institute, has put out a notice that it will pay $10,000 to any scientist who will contridict today's report. (Olbermann reported on this tonight but the video
isn't up yet) Here's a snippet:

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Later on in the article we find that somewhere around 20 AEI employees have been consultants to the Bush Administration. It doesn't take much of a memory to recall that the AEI is the favorite venue for Bush and Cheney to deliver speeches hyping their policies....that's because the policies were most likely written by the AEI in the first place.

AEI "Fellows" are all over the place. The one who irks me most is CNN's Chief Political Analyst who is sometimes identified (in his credentials) as an AEI Fellow.....that's fair...
The point is, AEI is not an honest broker in any sense. They aren't there to analyze the news, they there to spin the news...

I hope the exposure the Guardian article and Olbermann gave them today makes them less likely to confuse the issue again.

ROAD TRIP!!

Well, actually just a short one....be back this pm

in the meantime:

A sad note: Rest in Peace Molly Ivans....your words spoke both wit and wisdom and I will miss you.

The Rude Pundit sums it up well...

From sad to ....well...just plain stupid...

look at this:

again, TheRudeOne sums it up best:" Somewhere, Orson Welles is giggling his fat ass off."