The Reason for Torture - looking for justification to invade Iraq

Wonder why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month? What could he have possibly told us on the 180th time that he didn't on the 100th time? (BTW - that works out to over 6x a day for a month). Turns out the administration; Bush, Cheney, Rice, Tenet etc. were looking for reasons to invade Iraq and hoped waterboarding KSM would force him to say al-Qaeda and Iraq were in cahoots. After 183 times in one month he didn't. This despite the well known proclivity for persons under torture to spill whatever beans they think the torturers want to hear just to stop the pain. 183 times!

So after looking for 6 years and going through millions of Iraqi documents no evidence has ever been found that indicates there was operational cooperation beteen Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Not to mention the massive efforts to find the proverbial WMD. But that didn't stop the Bushites from the messianic, illegal and immoral crusade to find non-existent evidence and when none was to be found to simply manufacture it.

From a McClatchy story on the Senate report released just yesterday. "A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq. "While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results." http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/66622.html

Why "pressure to produce ties?"The Downing Street Memo states "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" around the policy. http://downingstreetmemo.com

The news here is that, finally, US Government documents are coming to light that prove the Bush Administration deliberately and with malice aforethought fabricated evidence to support its rationale for invading Iraq; thereby killing 4000+ (and counting) Americans (more than the 9/11 attacks) and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, displacing 2m+ of them in the process. If this is proved and I predict it will be beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is the crime of this young century and in my opinion ranks with the 9/11 attacks.

We have no choice but to follow all the evidence wherever it leads. If not we encourage more of this behavior by Democrats and Republicans, it doesn't matter which party, what matters is the abuse of power, privilege, position and the breaking of laws. This is not about retribution or revenge, its to reaffirm the Constitutional principle that no person is above the law. We have a chance to redeem our republic. If we don't we take several more steps down the slippery slope to despotism. "When the president does it its not illegal." That's a dictator (or a crook) speaking, not a president.

Forget all about the poor and homeless we've got to set the market free

The title of this post is a line from a song I wrote during the Reagan years the title of which is also the name of this blog: "Talk About America."

I really hope Chris Hedges is wrong but there's a 50-50 chance he isn't.

The next time we feel like scapegoating poor Mexican or Central American laborers or one of our fellow citizens who bought too much house with a loan their bank told them they "qualified for" just dust off this little treatise. Some choice passages include:

Hints of our brave new world seeped out Thursday when Washington's new director of national intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He warned that the deepening economic crisis posed perhaps our gravest threat to stability and national security. It could trigger, he said, a return to the "violent extremism" of the 1920s and 1930s. It turns out that Wall Street, rather than Islamic jihad, has produced our most dangerous terrorists. We will see accelerated plant and retail closures, inflation, an epidemic of bankruptcies, new rounds of foreclosures, bread lines, unemployment surpassing the levels of the Great Depression and, as Blair fears, social upheaval.

The economic collapse has exposed the stupidity of our collective faith in a free market and the absurdity of an economy based on the goals of endless growth, consumption, borrowing and expansion. The ideology of unlimited growth failed to take into account the massive depletion of the world's resources, from fossil fuels to clean water to fish stocks to erosion, as well as overpopulation, global warming and climate change. The huge international flows of unregulated capital have wrecked the global financial system. An overvalued dollar (which will soon deflate), wild tech, stock and housing financial bubbles, unchecked greed, the decimation of our manufacturing sector, the empowerment of an oligarchic class, the corruption of our political elite, the impoverishment of workers, a bloated military and defense budget and unrestrained credit binges have conspired to bring us down. The financial crisis will soon become a currency crisis. This second shock will threaten our financial viability. We let the market rule. Now we are paying for it.

The corporate thieves, those who insisted they be paid tens of millions of dollars because they were the best and the brightest, have been exposed as con artists. Our elected officials, along with the press, have been exposed as corrupt and spineless corporate lackeys. Our business schools and intellectual elite have been exposed as frauds. The age of the West has ended. Look to China. Laissez-faire capitalism has destroyed itself. It is time to dust off your copies of Marx,

does this mean prices will go down at Fry's?

Another capitalist crook bites the dust, now if we only had the guts to go after the bankers.

"One company, Phoebe Micro Inc., sold Fry's $80 million worth of goods between 2003 and 2008. The firm gave Fry's a $4 million discount, the IRS said, but paid Siddiqui's company $24 million."

If the $76m worth of merchandise can be further discounted $24m then by my reckoning Fry's can discount the product (this one anyway - others maybe more maybe less) another 30% and maintain margin. Should be a class action suit to force Fry's to rebate their customers who suffered economic loss due to this fraud? Apparently it failed to provide sufficient oversight to their management employee - among other things this is what Sarbanes-Oxley was created to do.

Israel's Lies: By Henry Siegman

Henry Siegman writes in the London Review of Books:

Israel’s government would like the world to believe that Hamas launched its Qassam rockets because that is what terrorists do and Hamas is a generic terrorist group. In fact, Hamas is no more a ‘terror organisation’ (Israel’s preferred term) than the Zionist movement was during its struggle for a Jewish homeland. In the late 1930s and 1940s, parties within the Zionist movement resorted to terrorist activities for strategic reasons. According to Benny Morris, it was the Irgun that first targeted civilians. He writes in Righteous Victims that an upsurge of Arab terrorism in 1937 ‘triggered a wave of Irgun bombings against Arab crowds and buses, introducing a new dimension to the conflict’. He also documents atrocities committed during the 1948-49 war by the IDF, admitting in a 2004 interview, published in Ha’aretz, that material released by Israel’s Ministry of Defence showed that ‘there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought . . . In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them, and destroy the villages themselves.’ In a number of Palestinian villages and towns the IDF carried out organised executions of civilians. Asked by Ha’aretz whether he condemned the ethnic cleansing, Morris replied that he did not:

A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.

In other words, when Jews target and kill innocent civilians to advance their national struggle, they are patriots. When their adversaries do so, they are terrorists.

2 state or bust?

Probably the most cogent analysis of the situation I've read in a very long time. I'm especially taken by this passage:

"Particularly misguided and damaging has been the oft-repeated demand that Palestinians offer territorial concessions that match the "painful concessions" Israel's leaders have said they are prepared to make. It is a formulation that reveals a profound misunderstanding or deliberate distortion of the history of this conflict, one that will inevitably produce a one-sided outcome that is unjust and untenable. Palestinians have not asked Israel to make territorial concessions--i.e., give up any of the territory Israel controlled between the armistice agreement of 1949 and the 1967 war--nor has Israel ever indicated it would under any circumstances consider doing so. What Palestinians have asked is that Israel return Palestinian territory on which Israel has illegally established settlements and to which it has transferred its own population, in violation of treaty obligations and international law. To describe the return of illegally expropriated Palestinian territory as Israeli "concessions" is to compromise the Palestinian case before negotiations even begin.

Indeed, it is only Palestinians who have made painful concessions. As a condition for Israel's acceptance of the Oslo Accords, the PLO formally agreed to recognize the legitimacy of territory acquired by Israel in the war of 1948. It is a concession that reduced by fully one half the territory originally assigned to the Arab population of Palestine by the UN partition plan of 1947. Given that major Palestinian territorial concession, any new initiative that does not provide that negotiations begin at the pre-1967 armistice line and expects Palestinians to relinquish (other than in equal land swaps) even more of the 22 percent of the territory that has been left them will be stillborn."

And before dismissing this fellow as some fanatic antisemitic raver on the order of say er uh... Jimmy Carter... know that the author is:

Henry Siegman, director of the U.S./Middle East Project in New York, a visiting research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is a former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America.

"Israel needs its version of Al Jazeera"

As if PR were the answer. If the IDF hadn’t killed so many innocent civilians over the years Israel wouldn’t need a “special” media outlet to put lipstick on its policies. Truthful objective reporting would be all that was necessary. “Buying” the Hamas line has nothing to do with it. Stop the killing, the oppression and close down the illegal “settlements” and the negative stories will stop. It’s simple. To paraphrase Bill Clinton “It’s the Occupation Stupid” and until Israel truly ends it, not like the ersatz “pull-out” from Gaza, the world will increasingly view Israel, as it did South Africa, as a pariah nation. America, the last bastion of uncritical support for Israel is slowly waking up to the horror that is the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel: get out while you still have time.

IDF Targeting Civilians

"Israeli soldiers fired on a group of residents leaving their homes on orders from the military and waving white flags, according to testimony taken by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem."

"Meanwhile, Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, declared that he would press forward with an "iron fist"."

That's obvious... and the assertions of the IDF apologists that the IDF goes out of its way to avoid killing innocent civilians wear more thin with each passing day.

The report continues...

"In Gaza, Munir Shafik al-Najar told B'Tselem that members of his extended family started trying to leave their homes after the Israeli army began demolishing buildings in the area of Kuza'a, close to the Israeli border with south-eastern Gaza. Mr Najar said the Israeli soldiers were using gunfire to signify that residents should leave, but then started shooting "indiscriminately".

He testified that his relative Rawhiya had stepped out of the family-owned building, one of whose walls had been destroyed by a bulldozer, expecting her family to follow, but she was shot. The military subsequently attacked another group escaping leaving two more of his relatives dead. The military said late last night that it had found the claim to be "without foundation".

Why do they hate us?

=

The Cost of War

Disturbing photos of the innocent victims of the conflict. Sensational? Yes, but we are so desensitized we need to be reminded every so often of the horror. We wonder why they hate us? See these photos and wonder no more.

There is no existential threat to Israel yet thousands of innocent Palestinians die each year

Its mystifying to me how great numbers of American Jews who self-identify as liberals and honestly espouse liberal causes in the USA and around the world (vote or campaign for Obama, support the ACLU, oppose apartheid in South Africa etc.) yet when it comes to the Palestinian question make a hard right turn and parrot a right wing closet fascist like Benjamin Netanyahu and his terrorist turned politician mentor Menachim Begin.

Robert Scheer a great American (and Jewish) liberal writes in his latest piece on Truthdig.com (click on the above link for the full text)

"Where are the voices that reflect the uncompromising morality of Einstein’s generation of Jewish intellectuals willing to acknowledge fault and humanity on both sides of the political equation?"

In a letter to the NYT Eistein clearly stated his views on Begin and his organization the:

“Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.” The letter urged Jews to shun Begin, arguing, “It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.”

The standard rejoinder as to why the hard right turn is that the Arabs want to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. Scheer writes:

Why is it that there is such widespread acceptance, beginning with the apologetic arguments of President Bush, that whatever Israel does is always justified as necessary to the survival of the Jewish state?

It is not.

While the Hamas rocket attacks are reprehensible, they are also an ineffectual challenge to Israel’s enormous security apparatus, and the severity of Israel’s response to them is counterproductive. Clearly, the very existence of Israel is not now, nor has it ever been, seriously challenged by anything the Palestinians did. Not back in 1948, when Israel was established as a state with insignificant Palestinian military resistance, nor at the time of the 1967 Six-Day War when Egypt, Syria and Jordan fought Israel."

Israel has nukes and America to back it up. No Middle Eastern group or country can defeat Israel as long as this is true. Fuggedaboudit. Killing innocent Arabs only makes the situation worse and creates more terrorists. How many Islamic terrorist attacks were there in the west before the 1967 6-Day War?

There is a much more robust debate in Israel over this question than there is here in the USA. One has only to look to groups such as Peace Now, the Ha'aretz newspaper and B'Tselem to see that. But try to have the same level of debate in the USA as Jimmy Carter or John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt did and the charges of antisemitism and being pro-terrorist inevitably follow. Its intellectually and morally bankrupt to stifle debate like this. A few voices like Scheer do exist but they are relegated to the fringe and rarely does on hear them in the mainstream media.

Hamas: The Next Generation

A Jonestown bucketful of political kool-aid

This post was originally published on 11/17/08 but I had trouble getting the text to display. So I deleted and re-published it today. Hence the date change.



"George W. Hoover?" Bill Kristol, the arch-conservative, writes In today's (11/17/08) New York Times: "There’s nothing conservative about letting free markets degenerate into something close to Karl Marx’s vision of an atomizing, irresponsible and self-devouring capitalism." Something close? No Bill, it might not be "conservative" but anyone with a pair of eyes can see its just plain greedy, self-serving, stupid, and short sighted. And Bill, BTW - there are millions of real people out there suffering from the pipe-dream that was supply side "economics." Just like in the 30s. Just like collectivism and national socialism - its a dead duck. George W. Hoover, George HW Hoover, Ronald R. Hoover, Newt Hoover, John McCain Hoover, Alan Greenspan Hoover - the whole lot are nothing more than the historical heirs of Herbert Hoover (and Ayn Rand). Let's face it - Republicanism is morally, intellectually and philosophically at the endgame. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; like Yasser Arafat and Michael Eisner its hung around far too long and outlived whatever usefulness it may have once had and its time to go. Hasta la vista baby! All that's left is a party with a focus group (and a mascot) searching for a marketing message to sell to Joe the Sixpack Plumber because what it had, proved to be an Edsel, an "Ishtar" a "Heaven's Gate" and a Jonestown bucket full of political kool-aid that's failed miserably and ruined America in the process. ps.. apologies to Herbert Hoover (because he was actually a pretty good guy he just didn't have any business being president), the Edsel (which is now a collectors item) and "Heaven's Gate" (which was actually a pretty good movie).

Bernie Madoff or Hamas?

Ironically, Bernard Madoff may end up doing more damage to the Zionists than Hamas. $50bn is a lot of money and much of it was invested by Jewish charities.

Speaking of Hamas... Israel, Hamas, America and the UK do not want peace. As Country Joe said..."There's too much money to be made supplying the army with the tools of the trade." To be sure there are peace-loving Israelis, Britons, Palestinians and yes Dorothy there are peace-loving Americans too. But there aren't enough of us to tip the balance. We need more truth tellers like Robert Fisk (see link above) and the late Edward Said to enlighten the world. Who is there among the Israelis to fill this role? Is he/she on the talk shows of Israel, the UK and America? Does he/she write op-ed pieces for major newpapers? Is he/she a Nobel prize winner? Please let me know for I wish to hear the voice of peace from Israel because thus far the only voice I hear is the voice of apartheid, bigotry and oppression.

The resisters of the Warsaw ghetto are now martyrs. Gaza is an analogue to the Warsaw ghetto. Squeeze Gaza until it erupts into violence and then kill its innocents because (predictably) it erupts in violence; its Newton's law.

Republicanism is dead - lets bury it and get it over with

John Dean discusses authoritarian conservatism. One more and perhaps, the main, reason to consign Republicanism to the ash heap of history. It's a party that has outlived it's usefulness. It, like Zionism, should join "Communism," Fascism, The Whigs, The Know Nothing Party, ( to which today's Republican party bears a striking resemblance) The Bull Moose Party etc. etc. etc.

To do any less would only invite it to resurrect itself and some day another ruinous Republican administration will "fool all of the people some of the time" and take the reigns of power in Washington digging this country into a hole and another Democrat will have to ride to the rescue of the nation.

Day of Reckoning

Here's my take on what's at stake.

McCain/Palin = policies that continue to benefit the rich and Fortune 500 corporations, especially the oil and arms industries

• Endless war
• More socialism for the rich (trickle down voodoo economics & tax cuts for people and corporations that don't need it) & corporate welfare (see $700bn bank & Wall Street Bailout, deregulation allowing the fox to guard the henhouse) & corporate lobbyists running government; in fact most of his top campaign staff are lobbyists and are likely to go back to lobbying after the campaign. Those that don't will likely join his adminstration and do favors for their buddies in the private sector - that's the way it works folks... we all know that.
• Continued erosion of our Constitution i.e. spying on innocent Americans without a warrant, continuing Bush's policy of torture and illegal detentions & renditions. McCarthyite tactics to stifle legitmate dissent. (See the mass arrests of legitimate protesters and credentialed journalists at the Republican Convention) the possible end of a woman's reproductive rights!
• Continued belligerence and bluster in international relations - see "bomb bomb bomb bomd bomb Iran." He has a military mind that favors force over diplomacy.
  
• The least qualified VP candidate in history. I shudder to think that a someone who can't even name a Supreme Court decision (besides Roe v. Wade) or a single newspaper or magazine she reads to keep current could be one 72 year old heartbeat away from having her finger on the nuclear trigger! What are we thinking? Electing a potential spokesmodel-in-chief? A Vanna Whitehouse? Please let's get serious here folks.
  

In short a McCain/Palin adminstration would continue the most egregious, ruinous excessive laissez fair capitalist policies that created this mess we're in today. With poverty levels and income equality not seen since the Great Depression, unbelieveably high deficits, state bankruptcies, high unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, wasteful, useless spending in the arms sector, corporate pork & erosion of Constitutional rights; McCain's policies will solve very little beyond palliative measures and exacerbate the decline of the USA while plundering the resources of the people to continue a quest for some kind of world-wide American Empire. Why do we need 750 military bases around the globe?

Obama/Biden = polices to help the middle class, working folks and the poor - the rich and the Fortune 500 don't need it

• Two self made men, family men, that have risen up to the highest levels of our society through hard work and talent. Nothing was handed to them. Unlike George Bush and John McCain they came up the hard way by earning it and represent the best of our country.
  
• End the occupation of Iraq responsibly - we've already won the war folks, victory is ours - Saddam is dead. Its over. Continuing to stay is just Cheney's and the neocon's plan for American Empire dominating militarily the Middle East, Central Asia and its oil reserves. If Iraq can muster an $80bn surplus while we spend $10bn a month they are well enough along for us to begin a significant but measured withdrawal down to a force to protect our Embassy. Without deadlines people don't perform. Its human nature.
• Domestic economic policies designed to help the people that actually need it. McCain/Palin call this socialism? If that's socialism I've got a bridge to nowhere for sale. When FDR created the New Deal it was called good government. When Teddy Roosevelt busted the trusts and reduced the power of big corporations it was called reform. The GI Bill, Social Security, Medicare, roads, bridges and other infrastructure, good schools, firefighters, police, National Parks; all these cost money. The rich, having suckled at the breast of America, need to pay their fair share to help those that aren't as fortunate as they. Republican policies since Ronald Reagan have systematically redistributed wealth to the wealthy by cutting taxes and deregulating corporations while starving programs for the people and attempting to tear down these basic social safety programs. Aren't you glad that Bush wasn't successful at privatizing social security? Can you imagine trying to retire at this point in history with the worst stock market meltdown since 1929? Using a socially conservative agenda to trick the American people into thinking they represented the common folk while in reality the Republican power structure cares no more for the people than did Marie Antoinette.
• Fair trade - let's stop the outsourcing of our jobs. Ross Perot was right. There has been a giant sucking sound of jobs leaving the country. Its just business folks, its completely amoral, money like water seeks it own level. If you can make your automobile or refrgerator or TV set in a country where you can pay workers $100 a month with no environmental controls or social rights instead of $100 a day, and shield your profits from US taxes (which are the lowest effective corporate tax rates in the industrialized world - which McCain wants to reduce even more) then you'd be a fool not to take advantage of these enormous loopholes.
• Respect for work - allow people to organize without fear - which is a right enshrined in law in this country just as healthcare should be
• A benevolent healthcare system so peope aren't held hostage to their jobs and are covered regardless of their health status. A government takeover of healthcare? If only, Medicare spends 3% of its revenues on adminstration while the fat cats at United Health, Aetna etc. suck up 30% of revenues for administrative overhead. Obama will not nationalize healthcare just make it nearly 100% accessible and reduce its cost.
  
• Diplomacy first - force as an extreme last instead of a first resort - rebuild our alliances and regain respect and our moral standing in the world - cooperate not dominate
  
• Respect for the Constitution and appointment of Supreme Court Judges that will as well
• End torture - illegal wiretapping - illegal renditions - close Guantanamo - end the "War" on Terror - treat it as the criminal problem it is
  
• End the quest for Empire and go back to being a Republic
• Capture Osama Bin Laden and go after the people who actually attacked us instead of those that had nothing to do with it. Osama still has a job - do you?

And finally - competence - after 8 years of the most incompetent, morally and intellectually bankrupt presidency in history it will be a relief to get things working again. Stop the flight of qualified people from government. One reason we're in this economic mess is that the organs of government have become so politicized by Bush/Rove that many of the best people just left; leaving us with political cronies and hacks without any experience to run things. (see Alberto Gonzales) John McCain can't even run his campaign without lobbyists and his campaign has been a disaster swerving erratically from one extreme to the other. What makes us think he will run the country any better? Obama's campaign has been a model of organization and efficiency. Its brought millions of new voters into the democratic process and we finally have an opportunity to elect a leader who inspires hope instead of fear; competence and intelligence instead of crony capitalism and intellectual dishonesty; reason instead of superstition.

We can't let the fearmongers scare us. We're Americans, we're not scared of anything! When the going gets tough America gets going! We've done it before and we'll do it again. Obama is the absolute right choice at this crucial moment in our history. He isn't perfect but he's miles ahead of McCain/Palin who are a throwback to fear, superstion and the dark ages. Its time to evolve....

What the bailout does is help those concerned about the healthcare reform...

The US Americans the Iraq and like such as....

Is the Reichstag burning?

So - we're concerned about America are we? Then why threaten to veto the package that extends unemployment benefits helping those who really need it while touting a $700bn plan to bail out the Wall Street vultures??

As a good friend of mine said "The Republicans have wrecked America." How stupid do they think we are? The Bushites are trying to stampede Congress into another disaster. After Iraq you'd think that they'd wise up. There is glimmer of hope the Dems and a few sane Republicans might fight off this coup d'etat of unprecedented proportions. No oversight? No challenge in court? This amounts to Congress giving the power of the purse to the executive branch. Reichstag fire anyone? The parallels are uncanny.

I predicted the Bushites would come up with something before the election to perpetuate their power. This may be it. What would really roil the country is another terrorist attack... October surprise? I believe Bush and Co. knew an attack was coming on or around 9/11 and chose to let it happen so they could institute a national security state, and carry out the plans embodied in the "Project For a New American Century" which included invading Iraq. Look it up and then tell me I'm just paranoid.

Of pigs, fish & lipstick: Bravo Andrew!

Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic Monthly, an a-typical conservative rather than a typical conservative opines on the charade that is the McCain/Palin candidacy.

I must admit I cribbed the "a-typical conservative" line from one of the comments in the above referenced Truthout article.

The outright lies of Republicans are "Beyond the Palin!"

Cribbed that one too - from Keith Olbeman's show. :-)

Choice quotes:

"And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil."

"Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base."

I've predicted for many months the right wing Pavrovian (made that up myself) smear machine would go into overdrive because it has nothing substantive to run on. By just about any measure this country is worse off now than it was 8 years ago; unless of course you're part of Bush's base and are in the $1m+ income bracket. The Republicans have trashed our economy through laissez-faire robber baron style capitalism, trashed our military with the neo-con wet dreams that are the invasion of Iraq and the quasi-war with Iran, trashed our Constitution with warrantless wire-tapping, the end of habeas corpus and signing statements, the government itself has been trashed so that it has a hard time performing basic governmental functions. As Obama said "they campaign well and govern poorly." That's the understatement of the century. And don't give us that tripe about a do-nothing Democratic Congress that Fred Thompson et. al. spewed - the Dems majority is too slim to pass the important things like cutting off funding for the war and certainly too slim for a veto override.

And McCain/Palin expect us to believe they are change agents???? A religious fundie in the White House - that's change? A campaign run by lobbyists - that's change?

She was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it? If thats what you mean by change then, OK, works for me. Keeping the money after the bridge was nixed by Congress that's pretty cynical especially when you use it to build a road right up to the water where the nowhere bridge was supposed to be. Billing the state $40K in per diems for living in your own house is even worse. Road to nowhere is right - let's hope this candidacy is on a road to nowhere.

Actually real change would be Ralph Nader or Ron Paul in the White House but I'll be very happy to see O'Biden at the inauguration. (that one is courtesy of a slip of the tongue by Chris Matthews during his convention coverage)

A Noun, A Verb and POW

John McCain has been exploiting his prisoner of war experience every chance he gets. He has used this story to justify everything from not knowing how many homes he has to his healthcare plan to his marital infidelities to his taste in music. The McCain campaign is even using his POW story in paid ads. But now a veteran who was a prisoner with McCain in Vietnam is explaining loud and clear that being a POW does not qualify McCain to lead our country."


We are sure this video will draw an onslaught of right-wing attacks, but we bring it to you because it is our job to continue to convey the truth together and give these issues national attention. As Dr. Butler has said, McCain does not have the temperament to have his finger near the red button. Get this video to everyone you know-friends, family members, coworkers, and especially those who don't share your political views. The video is designed to reach them. Get it on your social networking sites like Digg. And get it to every blog, newspaper, and TV station that has ever overplayed McCain's POW story. It is time to fight back with truth!