Saturday, December 13, 2008

GOP to UAW:

Is this REALLY commercial tv news?

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Letter To Obama



This is mandatory summer reading.

Because something had to be done.

So we marched. We staged sit-ins and teach-ins. We burned draft cards and blockaded induction centers. We declared 'summers of love'. We stuck daisies into rifle barrels aimed at us. And some reacted, as you said, 'by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself'

Because the 'very idea of America itself' had become so distorted that it allowed for the napalming of children in their villages, and Mutually Assured Destruction through thermo-nuclear war, and the killing of presidents and civil rights leaders, and the destruction of the environment, and police riots against protesters, and the exploitation of migrant workers, and the oppression of blacks, and the subjugation of women, and even the slaughter of protesting students.

And the idea that hundreds of thousands of us could be forced to go kill other people against our will.

And if that's what the flag represented to the other side, then it damn well needed burning.

So call them 'excesses' if you will.

But those 'excesses' led to...

An end to the nuclear arms race.

An end to Vietnam.

An end to the draft.

Full legal rights for blacks.

Full legal rights for women.

Legal rights for gays.

Environmental protections.

Occupational safety laws.

And far far far more than I could ever list in one diary, so many things that seem so ordinary that they are the culture... now.

Though I will presume to list one last thing...

It's partly because of those 'excesses', and because people did not 'react merely by criticizing particular government policies' that you were able to become the Democratic party's candidate for president of the United States.

Just something you might want to think about, the next time you feel like bad-mouthing us DFHs.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Big Media Are Bad for Democracy

The segment of the Thursday, July 3rd episode will wind up focusing on the Big Media issue as led by Stop Big Media. We want to encourage as many viewers as we can to pick up the phone, call their Congressperson, and weigh in to say NO to the FCCs ruling expanding cross-ownership rights.

read more | digg story

Now That Was A Speech!

Yesterday evening, Sen. Chris Dodd gave a ripping speech on the Senate floor regarding FISA, the rule of law, and the disrespect for the institutions of government that supporters of telecom immunity have shown. It was the best speech anyone has given since this whole illegal domestic spying program was revealed.

read more | digg story

Friday, June 20, 2008

Big Oil Firms Ready to Sign Agreements With Iraq

BAGHDAD, June 19 -- Iraq is preparing to award contracts to several Western energy companies to help develop its vast oil resources, allowing them to consolidate their positions in a country that has seemed less threatening in recent months as security has improved.

read more | digg story

Senate Set to Clear Supplemental

Everybody's caving to BushCo and the war machine. The Senate is set to bow to the House in their long battle over whose plan for the supplemental spending bill will reach the president's desk. The House on Thursday evening approved its latest version of the measure (HR 2642), which would provide $161.8 billion in war funding, an expanded veterans' education.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Tentative accord on spy bill, immunity

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House and congressional negotiators have reached a tentative agreement on an anti-terror spy bill that would permit court dismissal of potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits against phone companies, sources familiar with the talks said on Friday.

read more | digg story

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Media Reform and Social Change

Communication and access to technology are central to the success of all social change efforts.

Amalia Anderson, Main Street Project, talks about going t]into local communities and giving the common people--immigrants and indigenous people--the skills to tell their stories digitally in lieu of the opportunities offered (or not) by mainstream media.

Structure is the theme--structural change, not just for indigenous people, but all people with local or common interests.

Mark Lloyd: User generated media should be fully funded by taxes on corporate media.

Platforms and structures: give local people ownership, propriety, viewership and trickle-up direction--start with local empowerment.

MNN--go out and get locals and bring them into the operation--and turn the platform into a venue for locals and then work to expand the whole operation onto the internet.

Then the presenters pulled hte rug out from under the audience by taking the microphone at the head table and talking about what is bias and how to recognize unfair reporting.

Media bias examples--war, Katrina, immigration.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Democratic Primary Boosts U.S. Image Around the World

LONDON, June 4 -- For much of the world, Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries was a moment to admire the United States, at a time when the nation's image abroad is in tatters.

"Although no one will admit it, Israeli leaders are worried about Obama," said Eytan Gilboa, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. "The feeling is that this is the time to be tough in foreign policy toward the Middle East, and he's going to be soft."

read more | digg story

Friday, May 30, 2008

GAO, Pentagon's IG Investigate "Pentagon Pundits"

I suspect the GAO is dragging the Pentagon IG, kicking and screaming, to investigate the propaganda program the Pentagon launched in their media psyop to promote the Iraq invasion.

read more | digg story

Saturday, May 24, 2008

How telecoms are attempting to buy amnesty from Congress

Lobbyist disclosure forms and campaign contribution records illuminate the sleazy process by which our key laws are written.

read more | digg story

Bush Power Grab Since 911 - Democratic Underground

Unitary Executive theory is ahistorical and undemocratic.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Center For Media and Democracy: Sheldon Rampton @ Google

Cops with rifles to hit streets this summer: More, Bigger Guns For Peace

Metropolitan PD officials said yesterday patrol officers will be issued assault rifles by the summer, after policies on their use are released this month. The Wash Times reported Wednesday that the department is arming the officers with the rifles as part of a national trend to protect them from criminals with increasingly powerful weapons.

read more | digg story

White House denies Army radio report on plan to attack Iran

Army Radio had quoted a top official in Jerusalem claiming that a senior member in the entourage of President Bush, who concluded a trip to Israel last week, had said in a closed meeting here that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Friday, May 16, 2008

An epidemic of extinctions: Decimation of life on earth

Scientists estimate that the extinction of more than 25% of all living species on earth in the last 35 years represents an acceleration by a factor of 10,000 of the normal rate in the history of the planet.

read more | digg story

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

That's What I Thought They Were Saying, Too!

Jeffrey Feldman has a brilliant post on Alter Net entitled, "The Violent Language of Right Wing Pundits Poisons Our Democracy," in which he states:

Most right-wing pundits see the power of the state as residing ultimately in the monopoly over violence, an idea that comes from the writings of German philosopher Max Weber. This, however, is not the political philosophy that guided the framers of the U.S. Constitution. In other words, violent rhetoric is not just a question of linguistic style, but a sign that a political philosophy in conflict with American deliberative democracy has captured the imagination of many right-wing pundits.

Read more

The Mistake

James Carroll writes in yesterday's Boston Globe:

Let's call this repeated insanity the mistake of "supermilitarism," choosing war over diplomacy, and expecting order to follow, instead of chaos. The mistake was made at the beginning, in the middle, and is being repeated now, in what should be the end. The mistake is so deeply rooted in American structures of imagination, economy, and government that it isn't even perceived as a mistake by those in power. And it threatens the future as much as it burdens the past.

Read more

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Myths and Harsh Effects of Bush's Economic Class War

The recession of 2001 never ended for most Americans. The only "growth" the economy has undergone since then has been borrowing and incursion of debt disguised as growth.

read more | digg story

Monday, April 28, 2008

Greenspan, Bush to blame for U.S. crisis: Stiglitz

VIENNA (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and the government of President George W. Bush were to blame for the U.S. financial crisis, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz said in a magazine interview. ''This man...

read more | digg story

Monday, April 21, 2008

Patriotism, Loyalty

Barstow on retired military officer pundit corps:

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.


Read more

Financial Times Endorsement: Democrats must choose Obama

How much the way that a campaign is run tells you about a candidate’s fitness to be president is debatable – but it does tell you something, especially if the candidate with the misfiring strategy is running on a claim of management expertise. In fact, the campaigns have underlined the contenders’ respective strengths and weaknesses.

read more | digg story

Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Martial Law Act of 2006

Martial law is perhaps the ultimate stomping of freedom. In 2006, Congress passed a provision that will make it easy for President Bush to impose martial law in response to a terrorist “incident.” There is nothing to prevent a president from declaring martial law on false pretexts – any more than there is to prevent him from launching a foreign war

read more | digg story

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Fascism Is Creepy

fascism has come to America. The media and the government work together to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful, who conspire against the general population. We need a progressive income tax, a hearty estate tax, and protective tariffs. We need a media public takeover.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Save This

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d33af42a-04c7-11dd-a2f0-000077b07658.html

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Enumberating Absolute Power?

The Yoo memo, disturbing though "disavowed" by the Administration, reveals more about the character of this nation, this administration, and this war than any of us are inclined to acknowledge."

read more | digg story

Thursday, March 27, 2008

NPR News: National Pentagon Radio?

While the Iraqi government continued its large-scale military assault in Basra, the NPR reporter’s voice from Iraq was unequivocal this morning: “There is no doubt that this operation needed to happen.”

read more | digg story

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

What's This About a Ceasefire? I thought it was The Surge

BAGHDAD, March 25 -- Gun battles erupted between Iraqi security forces and Shiite armed groups in the southern oil city of Basra on Tuesday as the government launched a security offensive against the feuding militias that have turned the city into one of Iraq's most dangerous zones.

read more | digg story

Brazil demonstraters block access to dam to protest utility

Anti-privatization protesters demonstrate at auction of CESP, the major supplier of electricity to South America's largest city.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Getting It Wright

Obama’s words implicate the press in the stagnation of our national discourse on race—and, as such, in our inability to overcome the entrenched racial divides that Obama unearthed in his speech with the spade of personal experience.

read more | digg story

Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage

What is evident is that Barack Obama not only cleared the air over a particular controversy — he raised the discussion of race and religion to a higher plane.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Obama Speech On Race: Full Text

History in the making. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the likely next President is about to deliver a speech that could be historic as a symbol of an America that is starting to move beyond racial divisions. Here's the full text.

read more | digg story

Thursday, March 13, 2008

War Made Easy: Tales of a Prostituted Press

Those well-paid journalists who were cozy with powerful officials, as well as the on-air reporters with nice hair and make-up surrounded by flashy graphics, all got it just as wrong as the Bush administration—with disastrous consequences.

read more | digg story

Pentagon Cancels Study Finding No Saddam-al Qaeda Link.

The Pentagon on Wednesday canceled plans for broad public release of a study that found no pre-Iraq war link between late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the al Qaida terrorist network.Rather than posting the report online and making officials available to discuss it, as had been planned, the U.S. Joint Forces Command said it would mail copies of the document to reporters — if they asked for it. The report won't be posted on the Internet

read more | digg story

Truth, The American Way, and the Department of Justice

Far from being the gatekeeper of the nation’s legality and the custodian of its ethics, the Justice Department has emerged as the single most corrupt institution on the Washington landscape.
-- Scot Horton



Read More

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

WSJ.com - Opinion: Inflation Alert

It's looking too much like the early '70s for comfort.

read more | digg story

Some Questions on Spitzer

I think these question requires answers despite the outcome for spitzer. Nobody is going to make the mistake of fighting for this guy when he makes these sorts of clintonian mistakes, but these questions need answers.

read more | digg story

Pentagon Review Finds No Link Between Saddam and Al Qaida

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

read more | digg story

House Democrats Defy White House on Spying Program

Defying White House demands to pass a surveillance measure to expand domestic spy powers and provide legal immunity for companies that assisted the government with warrantless eavesdropping, House Democrats are drafting a new proposal that refuses to grant immunity.

read more | digg story

Monday, March 10, 2008

Paul Krugman: The Face-Slap Theory

Friday’s employment report — which was so weak that it had many economists declaring that we’re already in a recession — was bad news. But it was actually less disturbing than what’s going on in the financial markets.

read more | digg story

Telecom Companies Try to Buy Their Way Out of Trouble

One of the drafters of the 1980s telecom FISA legislation that granted telecoms immunity for cooperating with the Government in spying IF THEY OBTAIN WARRANTS, wants to sue.

read more | digg story

Friday, March 7, 2008

Another Reason Not to Vote For Hillary

Hillary shows more of that great "experience" in 2006 as she votes against a ban on landmines/cluster bombs. Obama votes for the ban.

read more | digg story

A Math Problem Hillary Can't Come Back From

For all the restless reporting the cable channels do about the Democratic contest being neck and neck, the math doesn't lie: the game is over.

read more | digg story

U.S. economy loses worse-than-expected 63,000 jobs in Feb

U.S. employers cut payrolls for a second straight month during February, slashing 63,000 jobs for the biggest monthly job decline in nearly five years as the labor market weakened steadily, a government report on Friday showed.

read more | digg story

Democrats Try to End Impasse Over Delegates

The fate of the Florida and Michigan delegations has emerged as a battleground that could be as important to the candidates as April’s Pennsylvania primary.

read more | digg story

2008 May Test Clinton's Bond With McCain

Au contraire. Clinton and McCain are two heads of the same two-headed snake: the big money special interest lobby military industrial complex. Compliments of 1776Forever at DU http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=101913&mesg_id=101943

read more | digg story

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Cost of Iraq War Now Beyond Human Comprehension

even if you were or are in favor of the war, this will boggle your mind.it's in the trillions. and counting.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Catapulting the Propaganda on PAA

On February 24, 2008, The White House posted an argument attempting to contradict Pelosi's points against the necessity of passing the Protect America Act to amend FISA.

"What" they are attempting to defend here is not clear, other than their own ability to violate the Constitution with impunity.

Vt. towns put Bush, Cheney on arrest list

Brattleboro and Marlboro, two tiny Vermont towns, have indicted Bush and Cheney, putting them on a list of offenders to be arrested should they ever set foot in their city limits.

read more | digg story

ABC News: Vt. Towns Approves Bush 'Indictment'

Voters in two Vermont towns approved measures Tuesday calling for the indictment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for what they consider violations of the Constitution. More symbolic than anything, the items sought to have police arrest Bush and Cheney if they ever visit Brattleboro or nearby Marlboro or to extradite them for prose

read more | digg story

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

FISA Fight: The House Holds The Cards

We have to work on the House Members who we can bring over to the NO AMNESTY camp, listed in this article.

read more | digg story

Monday, February 25, 2008

It's All About [Them] Him

Bill Kristol tries to wring a few drops of legitimate Barack Obama criticism out of the wet and bloody rags of his reportage, and fails.

We can look forward to some real media circus acts between now and 2016.

read more | digg story

Friday, February 22, 2008

Rule by fear or rule by law?

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and non-citizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S.

read more | digg story

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Obama Crushes Clinton in Wisconsin

The only question now is how destructive the Clintons will be on their way down. Will they take Obama with them?

read more | digg story

Workers see inflation-adjusted earnings fall 1.2% for year

Forget relying on Wall Street executives heading up Treasury and the Fed to "fix" the economy.Real wages are falling for middle and lower income workers. We need to "fix" the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department: the economic managers of this war on the working class.

According to CJR
Workers are already getting slammed, according to the Associated Press. It reports that inflation-adjusted earnings have fallen 1.2 percent in the last year, including a scary half-percent plunge in January from the month before. A good part of that pinch is coming from energy prices, and oil hit another non-inflation-adjusted record yesterday of $101.32 a barrel before settling at $100.74.


read more | digg story

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Letter to the International Herald Tribune

Paying the Price
When the Axis powers surrendered to the United Nations in 1945, there was a widespread expectation of peace and prosperity.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989, there was anticipation of a large "peace dividend."

But the peace dividend has not been a savings and reprioritizing of expenses for the American people. We're not beating our swords into plowshares.

Instead, the peace dividend has proven to be a windfall for a few special interests--a handful of people connected to the energy and military industries.

From the cold war, Korea and Vietnam to Latin America and the Middle East, the peace dividend has brought neither peace nor prosperity.

Instead, oureconomy is teetering on the worst recession in at least a century, with budget cuts affecting the services that working families need and depend on.

We're borrowing $343 million every day (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-john-murtha/hidden-costs-to-the-war-i_b_83544.html) to pay for a war that our leaders fooled and frightened us into fighting at a current cost of $338 million per day (http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?cat=15).

Gasoline prices are close to double what they were before the war began.

The American people need to enforce the peace on the wealthy, privileged and powerful interests who--in collaboration with some of our elected officials--are stealing our peace dividend.

EPA abdicates oversight role in Florida

“For all intents and purposes, EPA has ceased to exist in Florida...” --Jeff Ruch, Executive Director, Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

read more | digg story

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

There's Nothing Mainstream About the Corporate Media

The MSM is the "Corporate Media," far right of mainstream and always protecting corporate interests above those of the American people. They serve their parent companies as three ring circuses that distract the public from performing any critical scrutiny of the real business of industry and government.

read more | digg story

Senate Votes to Give FISA Retroactive Immunity for Telecoms

Let there be no doubt: a majority of senators, and a large number of Democrats, think the telecoms should not suffer the hazard of accountability for cooperating with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Screw you Dems who crossed the aisle!!

read more | digg story

Monday, February 11, 2008

Bush's 2009 Budget & Military Contractors

Think Progress has an entry on budget and what it will mean for the Contractors.

Last week, President Bush submitted his $515.4 billion defense spending budget for FY ‘09. Contained within that budget is a windfall for defense contractors — “$104.2 billion for weapons procurement and nearly $80 billion for research and development.” This budget is 7.5 percent higher than the current year’s.


Where does the money go? Ask USAspending.org.

InfraGard or "How To Disempower the Population of a Democcracy"

InfraGard is a network for security and intelligence sharing that is being set up by the FBI to protect the infrastructure of the United States.

It was not created by Congress.

As of late January, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, www.infragard.net, which adds that “350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have a representative in InfraGard.”

To join, each person must be sponsored by “an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization.” The FBI then vets the applicant.

Matthew Rothschild breaks the story at the Progressive.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Pirate Bay/Jobs endorse Obama, Clinton linked cable outages?

An amazing day for the political election, as Obama got the double-whammy endorsement from The Pirate Bay crew as well as Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Recent evidence also links the recent undersea cable damage in the Middle East to the Clinton Campaign. After a weak showing on Super Tuesday, Ron Paul also may be considering dropping out of the election.

read more | digg story

U.S. Acknowledges Use of Waterboarding

The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that waterboarding was used on three terror suspects. Senate Democrats are demanding a criminal investigation into waterboarding by government interrogators.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The Surrender is Working: U.S. Cedes Town to 'Al Qaeda in Ir

"Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" retakes strategic town south of Kirkuk.

read more | digg story

The World's Dump: Ocean Garbage from Hawaii to Japan

Ocean garbage. It's a story that, unfortunately, is growing.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

What's Really in the U.S. Military Budget?


The US spends as much on its military as the rest of the world combined! Here's a breakdown of the reported $515 billion figure, and why it should actually be $713 billion.

read more | digg story

Transposing Wars

Pentagon Papers Revealed Government Lies
I was struck by the ocean of disconnect between what was being reported by the U.S. press, still largely touting the official line that progress was being made in the war, and what I was witnessing at the time.

Read More

Monday, February 4, 2008

Bush Unveils "Fiscal" 2009 "Budget"

"We've seen this script before," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). "The President proposes more of the same failed fiscal policies he has embraced throughout his time in office -- more deficit-financed war spending, more deficit-financed tax cuts tilted to benefit the wealthiest, and more borrowing from foreign nations like China and Japan. The result can only be the same -- a further explosion of debt and the undermining of our nation's economic security."


Read more

Thursday, January 31, 2008

An Ex-President, a Mining Deal and a Big Donor

A Canadian financier who traveled to Kazakhstan with Bill Clinton and won a big mining deal later donated millions to Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation.


A spokesman for Mr. Clinton said the former president knew that Mr. Giustra had mining interests in Kazakhstan but was unaware of “any particular efforts” and did nothing to help. Mr. Giustra said he was there as an “observer only” and there was “no discussion” of the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev or Mr. Clinton.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Economist: The End Of Cheap Food

Rising food prices are a threat to many; they also present the world with an enormous opportunity

read more | digg story

Insurance Prices to Fall in ‘08

Insurance Prices Seen Lower in 2008 on Competition, Sagging EconomyPrices for most types of property and casualty insurance are expected to fall in 2008 for the first time since World War II, as a weakening economy and heightened competition hold prices down everywhere except along coastal areas that are exposed to hurricanes.

read more | digg story

Campaign 2008: John Edwards, We Hardly Knew Ye

Coming in third in South Carolina may be the real end for the campaign of former Sen. John Edwards, whether he keeps running or not. Sure, Edwards can keep siphoning off delegates so he can bargain for something at the convention. Attorney General, maybe? This essay looks at the larger picture: how Edwards' failure is the end of the Democrats.

read more | digg story

Edwards Goes To Plan B: Hang Tough

His four state strategy to jump start his national campaign has "failed," according to Christensen. But Edwards has raised $3 million in January.

read more | digg story

3 investigated over false Obama email

Hatch Act violation with email accusing Obama of being a 'radical Muslim.' Just one of the many Republican election fraud tactics.

read more | digg story

Monday, January 28, 2008

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets. Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency

read more | digg story

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Five years too late, Congress remembers the Constitution.

Do you remember this headline from March of 2003? Bush Plan for Iraq Would Be a First. No OK From Congress Seen; Constitutional Issues Raised. No? Don't remember that? That's because its dated Friday, January 25, 2008, from the Boston Globe.

read more | digg story

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Climate change 'significantly worse' than feared: Al Gore

Climate change is occurring far more rapidly than even the worst predictions of the UN's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change, Al Gore said on Thursday.Recent evidence shows "the climate crisis is significantly worse and unfolding more rapidly than those on the pessimistic side of the IPCC projections had warned us," he said.

read more | digg story

Tentative Deal on Economic Stimulus Plan (You Must Be Kidding version)

Congressional leaders and the White House reached a tentative deal on a package that would pay stipends of $300 to $1,200 per family and provide tax incentives for businesses.

read more | digg story

What They're Afraid Of

Whether we talk about Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton or John Poindexter, John Dean, and Dick Cheney, when we refer to "national security" and "intelligence information" we run across specific priorities and viewpoints.

These don't necessarily reflect the viewpoints and priorities of the American people--the sovereign.

Under the current FISA debate, the Senate Intelligence Committee, Chaired by Jay Rockefeller, seeks to pass a bill extending the provisions of the Protect America Act into permanent law. The provisions include authorization to surveil persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States. This means that communications can be collected and sifted for such information, as the amendment distinguishes between communications and persons.

Furthermore, the Department of Justice and the Director of National Intelligence seek the ability to compel independent private telecommunications carriers to provide whatever information (read: communications) they want, and to get a court order, if necessary, to do so.

As spelled out in a November 14, 2007 letter from Attorney General Michael Mukasey and National Intelligence Director, Michael McConnell, a substitute amendment to FISA, which does not permit these functions, is unacceptable to the administration.

Why? Because the intelligence community still hasn't come clean about the fact that they are scooping up all communications between everybody they can here and abroad before determining whether a person should be spied on. The don't want to allow for any reversal on the National Security Letters that were enacted by the Patriot Act Legislation. These letters let them search people's effects without a warrant and are not allowed under the FISA statutes.

Also, the Intelligence community depends on information controlled by private telecom carriers, so they have to have unfettered access to and unreserved compliance by such carriers. The original FISA statutes don't account for this and therefore jeopardize the whole mass spying, data-gathering, warrantless wiretapping scheme the Bush Administration has put in place.

Finally, without "retroactive immunity" for telecoms who broke the (FISA) law at the request of the Bush Administration, there is a risk that telecom representatives will tell the courts and the press things about the Bush Administration's tactics in the so-called war on terror that the Bush Administration doesn't want people to know. Whenever they say, "National Security" you know they mean, "criminal coverup."

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

California Needs to Act Now to Avoid a Water Crisis

With an antiquated water system, a growing population, and the pressure of global warming, California is in trouble.

read more | digg story

From Oil Wars to Water Wars

The world's leading scientists are predicting climate change to cause water wars and mass migrations from rural to urban areas.

read more | digg story

Friday, January 18, 2008

Hillary Clinton's Sleaze Parade

The 2008 Clinton Presidential campaign is composed of a surprisingly long list of surprisingly sleazy operatives committing surprisingly sleazy acts. So, why aren't the American people surprised?

read more | digg story

Thursday, January 17, 2008

A Revival of 1992’s Glum Mood

The details of the economic slump have changed since the ’92 presidential race, but the main story line remains much the same.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

New Hampshire Dem Recount to Test Diebold Accuracy

Dennis Kucinich reportedly gave the Secretary of State of the state of New Hampshire $25,000 to begin recounting the Democratic votes. There is a reported discrepancy in the tabulations between hand and machine-counted votes for Clinton and Obama.

read more | digg story

South Carolina Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!?!

South Carolina Elections Are Unconstitutional! Article II, � 1, of the Constitution of South Carolina states, "the ballots shall not be counted in secret." No more need to refer to case law, evidence, or logic to argue against secret vote counting, at least in South Carolina. But, will any of the candidates take action to demand change?

read more | digg story

Monday, January 14, 2008

Democratic Race in Nevada a Dead Heat

A new poll by the Reno Gazette-Journal shows a neck-and-neck three-way race among Democrats for Saturday's caucus. On the Republican side, U.S. Sen. John McCain has taken his first lead in Nevada of the election season, and Mitt Romney, who has been working Nevada harder than any other Republican, is trailing in fourth place.

read more | digg story

Friday, January 11, 2008

Kucinich Asks for New Hampshire Recount

Kucinich Asks for New Hampshire Recount in the Interest of Election Integrity

read more | digg story

Go, Edwards

Now that Richardson is out, Edwards is the only Democrat besides Kucinich who will have the troops out within a year, who has signed on to the Apollo Project, who will roll back capital gains and ceo deferred compensation tax breaks, CUT DEFENSE SPENDING, promote organized labor, did I mention Universal Health Care with choice between government and private plans?

And so, my fellow Kossaks, ask not why we are still supporting John Edwards, but why you are still supporting center-right DINOs.

Who knows, by the convention Edwards will seem more and more viable to more and more voters, regardless of what Clinton and Obama do. Edwards is pulling the entire national debate on every major issue over to his side of the argument.

Go, Johnnie, Go!

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

COMPLETE New Hampshire Primary Stats, both GOP & DEM

This simple page details the primary stats for BOTH parties. It also summarizes some key percentages. Clinton only wins vote count in machine-tabulated precincts, not in hand counted precincts

read more | digg story

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Chamber of Commerce Edwards Soundbite



Today, The Los Angeles Times is running a front page story about the United States Chamber of Commerce and the 2008 election.
We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed," chamber President Tom Donohue said.

Tom Hamburger reports that even though the Chamber of Commerce, and all the corporations the Chamber of Commerce represents, can't vote in elections, they can still control the election process by flooding the airwaves with attack ads and pro-corporate candidate media buys that use mass media technology and psycho-marketing research to influence voters about candidates.

Hamburger reports that,
A weak record of job creation, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, declining home values and other problems have all helped make the economy a major campaign issue.

Reacting to what it sees as a potentially hostile political climate, Donohue said, the chamber will seek to punish candidates who target business interests with their rhetoric or policy proposals, including congressional and state-level candidates.

So, regardless of any democratic purpose to holding elections in order to have voters select the leaders who represent their views, the Chamber of Commerce wants to make sure non-voting interests prevail and filter the candidates' messages to voters before the elections.

"I'm concerned about anti-corporate and populist rhetoric from candidates for the presidency, members of Congress and the media," he said. "It suggests to us that we have to demonstrate who it is in this society that creates jobs, wealth and benefits -- and who it is that eats them."

Whether he realizes it or not, Donohue is expressing the very problem the populists are fighting: big money, special interest election buying.

He's making the case for Edwards and Kucinich that we need publicly financed elections and strict media regulation of political advertisements.

Monday, January 7, 2008

From Hype to Fear

Paul Krugman: The opponents of change, those who want to keep the Bush legacy intact, are very good at the fear thing.

read more | digg story

Friday, January 4, 2008

Is Selfish Capitalism Driving Us Mad?

The growth in greedy consumerism over the past 20 years is taking a heavy toll on the mental health of English-speaking nations.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

"Free Markets" President

Aside from bringing the telecommunications industry into some kind of ironclad secret partnership with the National Security Administration and the Executive Branch (plus Dick Cheney's office, if you don't consider that part of the Executive branch), President Freemarkets wants to make the special government protections for the telecoms that own the media permanent protections.

As if that wasn't enough, the Commander in Chief of America for Sale wants to bail out mortgage banks, just like Ronald Reagan did to Savings and Loans. In a statement to reporters today, BushCo's spokesperson Ed Gillespie told reporters that the president wants Congress to do more to 'help make the market more stable.'

Sounds like "free trade" to me.

Eight Top Fields with Major Job Growth

Some of the brightest futures are available in eight of the fastest growth industries and the top occupations that occur within them, as projected by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. Don't be fooled. This paints a very dark future for the national economy--as fewer and fewer jobs will be available to more highly skilled workers to fight over harder and harder.

read more | digg story

Edwards Calls for Quick End to Iraq Training Effort

John Edwards is advocating a more rapid and complete troop withdrawal from Iraq than his principal rivals. Newly zionized NY Times, besides adding "William the Bloody" Kristol to their payroll, sets Edwards as target potentially opposing Israeli aggression and Saudi-Egyptian human rights violations.

read more | digg story