Why isn't Obama leaving McCain't in the dust?

Even with Barack's post-primary centrist shift, and McCain's listless, doddering campaign, it is astounding to me that the Presidential contest remains a statistical tie, with less than 100 days remaining.

Is it racism? That is certainly the most facile answer, but, frankly, I don't buy it. Is the media lying? Always a possibility, but at least some of the polls appear to be independent (for what's its worth).

Even if we concede that there is Obama fatigue among the electorate, how on earth could any half-thinking person believe that John McCain represents anything more than a continuation of the war-mongering (and profiteering) corporatist "let-them-eat-cheese whiz" sensibilities of the Bush-Cheney crowd. McCain has made it clear that he has thrown his lot in with the neoconservative jerks who have bancrupted the nation, turned us into a world-wide pariah, terminated much of the good that government can do while shoveling as much cash into the maws of Exxon-Mobil and their ilk as possible.

Flying to Europe a few weeks ago, I overhead some 40-something guy behind me talking to his next-seat neighbor. "I wish I could vote Democratic. But Obama - I just don't know what he stands for. And he really is a Muslim, you know. Now, McCain, get him off script (he stinks with a script) and he's a standup guy, a regular patriotic American." My God, I could've upchucked in this guy's lap. You see, people are willing to foolishly separate the mythological man that John McCain purports to be from the party that has coronated him. And his party doesn't suffer "mavericks" very gracefully. And it certainly doesn't give them the nomination.

That is how far up their asses so many Americans' heads are these days.

The Terrible Reality

Vincent Bugliosi's opening statements during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the constitutional limits of executive power.

It's amazing

So, there is hoopla when Obama shakes hands with his wife, but no one cared when the President held hands with the dictator of the country that sent 14 of the 911 hijackers.

(A tip of the Mirsky hat to buckfush.com)

Time to reflect...

... and ask yourself why this bastard is still in the Oval Office.

RESUME

GEORGE W. BUSH

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been 'lost' and is not available.

Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:

I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.

I began my career in the oil business in Midland Texas , in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.

With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:

I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.

I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.

With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida , and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President of the United States, after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:

I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.

I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.

I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.

I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.

I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues.

I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My 'poorest millionaire,' Condoleezza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.

I am the all-time U.S. and world record -holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.

My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. history, Enron.

My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.

I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history. I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.

I changed the U.S. policy to allow convict ed criminals to be awarded government contracts.

I appointed more convicted criminals to my administration than any President in U.S. history.

I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States Government.

I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.

I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.

I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.

I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. 'prisoners of war' detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.

I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US election).

I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.

I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.

I garnered the most sympathy ever for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.

I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.

I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. Citizens and the world community.

I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.

In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.

I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.

I am supporting development of a nuclear 'Tactical Bunker Buster,' a WMD.

I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.

All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review. I specified that my sealed documents will not be available for 50 years.

Overstating our fears about Osama bin Laden and others of his ilk

Reprinted from the Washington Post.

GLENN L. CARLE, a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for 23 years, retired in March 2007 as deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats.

Sen. John McCain has repeatedly characterized the threat of "radical Islamic extremism" as "the absolute gravest threat ... that we're in against." Before we simply accept this, we need to examine the nature of the terrorist threat facing our country. If we do so, we will see how we have allowed the specter of that threat to distort our lives and take our treasure.

The "Global War on Terror" has conjured the image of terrorists behind every bush, the bushes themselves burning, and an angry god inciting its faithful to religious war. We have been called to arms, built fences, and compromised our laws and the practices that define us as a nation. The administration has focused on pursuing terrorists and countering an imminent and terrifying threat. Thousands of Americans have died as a result, as have tens of thousands of foreigners.

The inclination to trust our leaders when they warn of danger is compelling, particularly when the specters of mushroom clouds and jihadists haunt every debate. McCain, accepting this view of the threats, pledges to continue the Bush administration's policy of few distinctions but ruthless actions.

I spent 23 years in the CIA. I drafted or was involved in many of the government's most senior assessments of the threats facing our country. I have devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat.

We rightly honor as heroes those who serve our nation and offer their lives to protect ours. We all "support the troops." Yet the first step for any commander is to understand the enemy. The next commander in chief should base his counterterrorism policies on the following realities:

We do not face a global jihadist "movement" but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaida.

Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears. Al-Qaida is the only global jihadist organization and is the only Islamic terrorist organization that targets the U.S. homeland. Al-Qaida remains capable of striking here and is plotting from its redoubt in Waziristan, Pakistan. The organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing and leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaida threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but its capabilities are far inferior to its desires. Even the "loose nuke" threat, whose consequences would be horrific, has a very low probability. For the medium term, any attack is overwhelmingly likely to consist of creative uses of conventional explosives.

No other Islamic-based terrorist organization, from Mindanao to the Bekaa Valley to the Sahel, targets the U.S. homeland; is part of a "global jihadist movement"; or has more than passing contact with al-Qaida. These groups do and will, however, identify themselves with global jihadist rhetoric and may bandy the bogey-phrase of "al-Qaida." They are motivated by hostility toward the West and fear of the irresistible changes that education, trade, and economic and social development are causing in their cultures. These regional terrorist organizations may target U.S. interests or persons in the groups' historic areas of interest and operations. None of these groups is likely to succeed in seizing power or in destabilizing the societies they attack, though they may succeed in killing numerous people through sporadic attacks such as the Madrid train bombings.

There are and will continue to be small numbers of Muslims in certain Western countries - in the dozens, perhaps - who seek to commit terrorist acts, along the lines of the British citizens behind the 2005 London bus bombings. Some may have irregular contact with al-Qaida central in Waziristan; more will act as free agents for their imagined cause. They represent an Islamic-tinged version of the anarchists of the late 19th century: dupes of "true belief," the flotsam of revolutionary cultural change and destruction in Islam, and of personal anomie. We need to catch and neutralize these people. But they do not represent a global movement or a global threat.

The threat from Islamic terrorism is no larger now than it was before Sept. 11, 2001. Islamic societies the world over are in turmoil and will continue for years to produce small numbers of dedicated killers, whom we must stop. U.S. and allied intelligence do a good job at that; these efforts, however, will never succeed in neutralizing every terrorist, everywhere.

Why are these views so starkly at odds with what the Bush administration has said since the beginning of the "Global War on Terror"? This administration has heard what it has wished to hear, pressured the intelligence community to verify preconceptions, undermined or sidetracked opposing voices, and both instituted and been victim of procedures that guaranteed that the slightest terrorist threat reporting would receive disproportionate weight - thereby comforting the administration's preconceptions and policy inclinations.

We must not delude ourselves about the nature of the terrorist threat to our country. We must not take fright at the specter our leaders have exaggerated. In fact, we must see jihadists for the small, lethal, disjointed and miserable opponents that they are.

Send Turd Blossom to jail!

Sign the petition here.

History

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth."
-Vladimir Ilych Lenin

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
-President George W. Bush, speaking at a Gridiron Club dinner, Washington, D.C., March 2001

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
-Joseph Goebbels (http://histclo.com/bio/g/goeb/bg-pro.html)

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
-President George W. Bush, speaking at Athena Performing Arts Center at Greece Athena Middle and High School, Greece, New York (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-24-2005/0003685801&EDATE= )

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-GOP President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
letter to Col. William F. Elkins
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw, Macmillan, 1950, NY

"The entire Bush presidency has been a fraternity prank that got out of hand"

From the UK Telegraph:

George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan.

Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor and Urmee Khan

REUTERS

George Bush shares a joke with Prime Minister of Japan Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese President Hu Jintao at the G8 Summit in Toyako

EPA

George Bush proves to be quite an entertainer

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Mr Bush, whose second and final term as President ends at the end of the year, then left the meeting at the Windsor Hotel in Hokkaido where the leaders of the world's richest nations had been discussing new targets to cut carbon emissions.

And I must credit Richard Littlemore from the DeSmogBlog for the title of this post.

American Hero IV

I have seen the future of activism ...

... and his name is Van Jones.

Tonight, at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (the UU annual national meeting) in Fort Lauderdale, Van Jones presented the 2008 Ware lecture, a sort-of keynote address featured at every GA.

Frankly, I was spellbound. Speaking without the ubiquitous PowerPoint presentation, without notes as far as I could tell, Mr. Jones alternately cajoled us, praised us, inspired us, blessed us, and made us laugh, but most of all, lifted us up into a new world of possibilities and new paradigms.

Van Jones' vision is of a new Green Economy in our nation, one that first reaches out to the people who were locked out of the old gray economy. His vision is that of an ecological revolution formed by the marriage of environmentalism and social justice.

"The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy.

Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails."

-- Van Jones

So, who is this guy?

Well, for one, he is an African-American environmentalist, something that was once considered an oxymoron.
From Wikipedia:
Van Jones (born 1968) is a civil rights and environmental advocate in Oakland, California, working to combine solutions to social inequality and environmental justice. Jones is the president and founder of Green For All, a national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Green For All grew out of Jones' work creating a 'Green Job Corp' in Oakland, California, as part of a program at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Jones founded the Ella Baker Center in 1996. Named for the civil rights and human rights heroine Ella Baker, the Center challenges human rights abuses in the United States criminal justice system and "promotes alternatives to violence and incarceration."

Here are links to Van Jones and some of initiatives:

• The Ella Baker Center website
• Van Jones' personal website
• Van Jones' blog on The Huffington Post
• An interview with Van Jones in The Witness
• Biography of Van Jones
• "Creating Green-Collar Jobs" by Van Jones and Ben Wyskida
• Stories by Van Jones on alternet.com
• Great podcasts of Van Jones' speeches put to music
• Story on Van as a modern hero, by Rosemary Pritzker

From LINKTV, Journalist Mark Hertsgaard speaks with Van Jones of the Apollo Alliance about the environment and concrete ways that ordinary people can make a difference:



Van Jones at BIONEERS '07:


Social activist, Van Jones, speaks about activating your personal edge in the context of any social activism and also in the context of healing our prison systems:


There are lots more on YouTube.

And so, when he finished tonight, Mr. Jones made a beeline to where our UU youth sat (or rather stood, as the ovation we gave him after his address was unanimously standing) and spent fifteen minutes exulting them, hugging them, letting them know who will carry America to its promise still deferred. Watch this guy. He is going to change the world.

Cindy McCain's Dirty Little Secret

As the right wing begins its election season hatchet job on Michell Obama, don't hold your breath waiting for the mainstream media to talk about Cindy McCain's little brush with the dark side. From Stephen Elliott at the Huffington Post:

"It's a psychedelic experience this week, watching Cindy McCain out on the campaign trail, attacking the opponent's wife. In rally after rally she says, "I've always been proud of my country," a not so subtle jab at Michelle Obama's gaffe earlier about really being proud of America for the first time.

"But Cindy McCain has one hell of a scandal in her past. In the mid-nineties she was addicted to prescription pain killers. Worse, she was stealing the drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a third world relief organization she founded. Like most ridiculously rich people, she didn't have to go to jail for her crimes and was allowed to enter a rehab program rather than face criminal charges. The charity was shut down."

Read the rest here.

Barak Obama and the American Corporatist Empire

In his 1995 book "When Corporations Rule The World," economist David Korten spelled out in painstaking detail the global ascent of multi-national corporations to levels of power and influence unrivaled by any previous power in human history.

Marry this power to to apparatus of state, and you not only have Mussolini's definition of fascism, you have a force that ultimately is the antithesis of all things good about democracy. The toxic influence of the corporate agenda on our own democracy is evident to anyone who willing to open their eyes. Our media is controlled by a meager handful of huge corporate interests. K Street lobbyists jostle for face time with legislators on both side of the aisle. And candidate John McCain fills his campaign staff with dozens of "former" lobbyists.

The Bush-Cheney era has extended the degree of largess afforded corporate interests, appreciably advanced during the Reagan era and only marginally decelerated during Bill Clinton's 2 terms, to an obscene level, where oil companies set energy policy, banks draft legislation on credit card and personal bankruptcy policy, and insurance companies finesse national health policies.

Those of us supporting Barak Obama believe he is our best (and possibly last) hope to turn around a system that puts corporate interests above people. But as Naomi Klein points out in the Nation, no sooner does he clinch the nomination then does he begin the back-pedaling from any rhetoric that might be conceived as populist (a word, by the way, which has become synonymous in our skewed culture with socialism).

Obama's appointment of boy wonder Jason Thurman to head his economic team is worrisome. As Klein writes, "Furman is one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, anointing the company a 'progressive success story.'" If you, like me, believe "free market" cannot be divorced from fair market, and unbridled capitalism requires regulatory oversight, these hints of laissez-faire from the purveyor of "hope" and "change" is a locus of concern.

A secret history of Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL)

From Muttering Jam's long time nominee for super-hero elect, Greg Palast - the real story of the war that John McCain would like to see continue for 100 (10,000?) years:

"Conspiracy nuts think Geroge Bush, from the moment he took office, had a secret plan to control Iraq's oil. Their wrong. Bush had two plans. Here they are. One crafted by neo-conservatives at the Pentagon; another fashioned by the State Department and Big Oil. This is the history of the secret cold war between these two power elites that drives the hot water on the Tigres."

Click here to see the time line.

Oh, McCain

Bill Moyers for VP

Here's a great video clip of Bill O'Reilly's pimp ... er.... producer, ambushing Bill Moyers at the National Conference on Media Reform last week. Moyers expertly handles the fool as you might expect.

This is the start of something good!

Rep. Dennis Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment

#1: Creating a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false case for war against Iraq

#2 Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression

#3 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War

#4 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States

#5 Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression

#6 Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114

#7: Invading Iraq without a declaration of war.

#8: Invading Iraq in violation of the U.N. charter and international law.

#9: Failing to provide troops with body armor and vehicle armor.

#10: Falsifying accounts of US troops deaths and injuries for political purposes

#11: Establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq

#12: Initiating a war against Iraq for control of that nation’s natural resources.

#13: Secret task force for directing national energy policy

#14: Misprision of a felony, misuse and exposure of classified information and cover up (Plame outing)

#15: Providing immunity from prosecution for criminal conduct for contractors in Iraq

#16: Reckless misspending and wasted US tax dollar with Iraq contractors

#17: Illegal detention – detaining indefinitely, and without charge, American citizens and foreign captives (suspension of habeus)

#18: Torture – secretly authorizing and encouraging use of torture, as matter of official policy

#19 Rendition

#20 Imprisoning Children Bush is guilty of impeachable offence arcticle 20, imprisoning children. Has personal and acting through agents has held at least 2,500 children in violation of Geneva convention and the rights of children in armed conflict signed by the US in 2002.

#21 Misleading Congress about threats from Iran

#22. HAS ESTABLISHED A BODY OF SECRET LAWS THROUGH THE OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL. THE YOO MEMORANDUM WAS DECLASSIFIED YEARS AFTER IT SERVED AS LAW UNDER THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH.

#23 Violated Posse Comitatus Act ESTABLISHED PROGRAMS FOR THE USE OF THE MILITARY IN LAW ENFORCEMENT. MUST BE AUTHORIZED BY THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CONGRESS SO THAT THE MILTARY CANNOT BECOME A NATIONAL POLICE FORCE.

#24 Spying on citizens violating 4th Amendment

#25 Directing telecoms to collect databases on US citizens.

#26 Announcing intent to violate laws w/signing statements, and then violating those laws.

#27 Failing to comply with congressional subpoenas, and instructing others to do so.

#28 tampering with free and fair election. Corruption with the administration of justice, False allegations of voter fraud in selected districts, immediately preceding elections. Undermining process.

#29: Conspiracy to violate voting rights act of 1965, Ohio Sec of State 2004-06

#30: Misleading congress and american people in an attemtp to destroy medicare.

#31 Katrina and the failures of gross negligence of the administration.

#32: Misleading congress and the American people. Systematically undermining global climate change. Article 2, Section 3: Personally and through subordinates including the VP, for not protecting property of people vis a vis global climate change thru deception. Failure to ratify Kyoto. Editing reports - 294 edits by a lobbyist to add data which called into question the facts by muddying them. Or diminishing scientific findings.

#33: Repeatedly ignored and failed to respond to high level intelligence warnings of planned terrorist attacks in U.S. prior to 9/11.
Clark warned the president in daily briefings of the threat. Clark was unable to conviene a cabinet level position. Tenet met with the president 40 times to warn of threat. Still no meetings of top officials.

#34: Obstruction into the investigation of 9/11.

#35: endangering the health of 9/11 first responders.

BBC Uncovers Lost Iraq Billions

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding. A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations. The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

While President George W. Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted. To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

Here's the video report from the BBC's Panorama:

Bush and the Nazis

"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
-- President George W. Bush, before the Israeli Knesset, 5/15/08, referring obliquely to Barak Obama's willingness to have talk with leaders of Iran, Syria, etc.

Yeah, George W. Bush should know about appeasing Nazis. After all, a sizable portion of his inherited wealth was a direct result of doing business with them. What was once only rumors has been well-documented truth for some time:

"George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

"The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

"His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

"The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

Full story here.

More links:

http://www.rense.com/general42/bshnazi.htm

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=319

http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/new_world_order/bush_nazis.html

Thank's, Tom

"The Rant" by Tom Degan: V.P. Clinton? Forget About It!

You've heard me gush previously about my bloggin' buddy Tom Degan. Being somewhat lackadaisical lately when it comes to blog posting, I was so pleased to see that Tom has saved me the trouble of posting on exactly the same subject as he did this past Friday.

Thanks, Tom. Couldn't have said it better.

Iraq Veterans Against War seizes National Archives Building

Veterans demand that Cheney and Bush are charged with war crimes

This is the most stirring 2 minutes of video news I have seen in months. And a sad commentary on our media, as I find out about it 3 days after it happened. What if we all did this one day next week? At Federal buildings all across the country.

McHypocrite

Yup. Alleged war hero (what exactly did he DO in 'Nam other than get shot down, get captured and get tortured?) John McCain supports the troops. Right? As long as it doesn't cost his rich friends any tax dollars.

From Think Progress:

Today, Sen. John McCain spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, MO. He spoke at length about the sacrifice paid by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, acknowledging “how little has been asked of others compared to their service” and declaring that the nation owes veterans “a debt that we can never fully repay.” He also said that veterans should have access to “the highest quality health…care in the world” upon returning:

"As President, I will do everything in my power to ensure that those who serve today and those who have served in the past have access to the highest quality health, mental health and rehabilitative care in the world. The disgrace of Walter Reed must not be forgotten. … Whatever our commitments to veterans cost, we will keep them, as you have kept every commitment to us. The honor of a great nation is at stake."

Not only has McCain refused to support the 21st Century GI Bill, which the Veterans of Foreign Wars endorsed last June, he has consistently voted against increasing funding for the Veterans’ Administration, which oversees all medical care for veterans:

– Voted AGAINST an amendment providing $20 billion to the VA’s medical facilities. [5/4/06]

– Voted AGAINST providing $430 million to the VA for outpatient care “and treatment for veterans,” one of only 13 senators to do so. [4/26/06]

– Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.5 billion by closing corporate loopholes. [3/14/06]

– Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.8 billion by ending “abusive tax loopholes.” [3/10/04]

– Voted AGAINST a $650 million increase in veterans’ medical care funding. [8/1/01]

Though McCain has derided progressive universal health care plans as “a government takeover,” he is mum on the success of the VA, a government-run, integrated approach that, as Paul Krugman put it, is “one of the few clear American success stories in the struggle to contain health care costs.”

McCain’s zero-regulation, every-man-for-himself approach to health insurance would in effect “dismantle” the VA — what Krugman calls “a completely wrongheaded approach to health care.”

This is much more important than the story of him calling his wife a "trollop" and a "cunt."

McCain't, part 2

There are a fair number of longtime Democratic voters who have pledged not to support the donkey ticket if their chosen candidate is denied the nomination. Dan Payne, in an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe, was good enough to compile the sad facts of what a disgruntled Dem enabled McCain presidency is likely to mean for our nation. I quote liberally below:

"Look before you jump. Democrats thinking of voting for John McCain should ask themselves if they want a hot-tempered, right-wing Republican in the White House - keeping his foot on the gas in Iraq, sentencing women to illegal abortions, and pouring cement around President Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

"A Republican in Republican's clothing. McCain is, my friends, a Republican, a self-described "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution." He voted against expanding the children's health insurance program and against an assault rifle ban.

"Stiff the little guy, save the big boys. He's against the federal government helping thousands of people who lost homes in the subprime mortgage debacle. But he's OK with the Federal Reserve lending $30 billion to salvage Bear Stearns.

"He's the eighth-most conservative senator in Congress, after being the second-most conservative senator the preceding session.

"The Washington Post found that he has voted with a majority of his Republican colleagues 88 percent of the time this session. Some maverick.

"Can't tell Shi'ite from Shinola. Our foreign policy expert, while in Iraq, said over and over that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. No such thing is happening. Iran, a Shi'ite country, has been training and financing Shi'ite extremists, not Al Qaeda, who are Sunni insurgents. No wonder McCain says we'll have to be in Iraq for 100 years. He doesn't know who's fighting whom.

"Roll over, Darwin. On teaching 'intelligent design,' he said: 'I think that there has to be all points of view presented. . . . There's nothing wrong with teaching different schools of thought.'

"John Hagee, McCain's cross to bear. If Obama has to answer for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., McCain should have to answer for John Hagee.

"Last month, McCain said: "I was pleased to have the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee," who runs a 19,000-member church in Texas.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said: 'Hagee has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it "The Great Whore," an "apostate church," the "anti-Christ," and a "false cult system."

"Hagee has preached that God is going to use Muslim terrorists to create 'bloodbaths' to punish us for our sinful policies toward Israel.

"He felt that New Orleans had it coming when Hurricane Katrina struck. 'New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God.' How would he know?

"The Supremes. The day the next president takes office, five of the nine Supreme Court justices will be over 70. John Paul Stevens will be 88; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75; Anthony Kennedy, 71; Stephen Breyer, 70; and, I smile as I write this, Antonin Scalia is 72.

"The next president will probably pick one or two of their replacements; maybe more, if he or she is reelected. McCain, who favors the repeal of Roe v. Wade, promises conservative audiences, 'We're going to have justices like [John] Roberts and [Samuel] Alito.'

"Throwing lobbyists into the bus. McCain chairs the Senate committee that oversees the telecommunications industry. Charlie Black, McCain's lead strategist, admits to lobbying on his cellphone for his telecommunications clients on McCain's so-called Straight Talk Express bus. Campaign manager Rick Davis also on the bus, founded a lobbying firm that carries water for major telecommunications clients. At last count, a whopping 59 lobbyists are raising money for McCain." -- Dan Payne, "So, You Want o be a McCain Democrat?", Boston Globe, 4/3/08

Now, if all of this is just all right with you, I sincerely doubt that you really are a Democrat in the first place.

The two Naomis

It's easy to get Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf confused. Their most recent books came out at roughly the same time; they have the same first name; and both write from a perspective one would deem progressively left. The Wolf book, "The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot," is more a polemic, full of passion, but not a great deal of scholarship. It outlines the ten warning signs of a nation slinking towards fascism, and delivers a loud call for mobilization before the slide becomes irrevocable. I read it quickly, then passed it on to my daughter. This is by no means a dismissal. The book is a wake-up call to anyone who naively believes that it cannot happen here.


"The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," by Naomi Klein, is, on the other hand, a work of of ... well, shockingly detailed scholarship, a book that cannot be read at one sitting, not because it isn't readable (Klein is a superb writer), but because it is necessary to periodically cogitate on what Ms. Klein has just told you before continuing. The central thesis is this: the "free market" principles devised by the late Milton Friedman and his Chicago School of Economics in the 50's and 60's, and which are the primary philosophic under-pinning of the neoconservative agenda, have always been conjoined with policies of "shock and awe" (a phrase, by the way, that originated with Friedman). In other words, traumatize the populace, either by taking advantage of a natural disaster or scaring the shit out of them with propaganda, and then shove neoliberal market reforms down their throats (including massive privatization of public works) that ultimately benefit multinational corporations and corrupt politicians and their cronies, but strangle democracy and destroy the local economy. With furious prose, copiously backed up with references, Klein reveals the connections between the rise and fall of the "Asian tigers," the breakup of the Soviet Union, Chile under Pinochet, Argentina under the fascist junta, Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, the SE Asian tsunami, and, of course, Iraq. This extraordinary book will lift the veil from your eyes. It is, as the SF Chronicle called it, "the central narrative of our time."

The talented Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein made a short film graphically illustrating some of the central tenets of her book.

The "Not-So-Straight-talk Express"

Winter Soldiers

I've been listening to their stories. These are stories from hell from men and women who've been there and back. The hell created on the sands of Mesopotamia by the Legion of Chickenhawks in the Oval Office and their equally spineless droids on Capitol Hill. Do you want to understand why record numbers of returning vets are committing suicide? Do you want to find out what our combat troops were expected to do in the line of duty? In your name? These are the real heroes.

Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan

Sub-primes and Spitzer

“When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”
-- Former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer

Is there any connection to the finance industry's meltdown and Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace? Greg Palast thinks so, and frankly, when Greg spins, I listen. He's been right more times then he's been wrong (actually, I don't know when he has EVER been wrong).

Yeah, so Bad Boy Eliot got caught doing what Sen. David Ritter (R-LA) and God knows how many other "family values" Republicans have done. But Spitzer is down for the count while Vitter continues to do the hellish work of the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate.

"This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

"Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer."

-- Greg Palast, Eliot’s Mess

A tale of two scumbags

What exactly is the difference between David Vitter, Republican Senator from Louisiana and Eliot Spitzer, Democratic now-former Governor of New York?

Mostly just two. Spitzer is a liberal Dem. And Venter is still in office.

So, the lesson here, kids, is this. It is a far greater sin to be a whore-mongering liberal Democrat than a whore-mongering right-wing Republican.

Only in America...

... is it easier to impeach someone for having sex than for lying to justify war, torture and multiple violations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

My country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of hypocrisy ...

El Stupido Gallery

For a president who has stayed out of the public eye as studiously as George W. Bush, stepping out in front of the Iron Curtain of his administration only for carefully choreographed photo ops, there are an extraordinary number of photos of Dubya looking ... well, fairly stupid. As we watch the Decider slowly fade into history's no doubt harsh verdict on his appointed presidency, a review seems in order.
But lest you think that that class clown, with all of its intonations of harmlessness, is the true face of George W. Bush, the following perhaps reveal more accurately the soul in the heart of the beast.

Quote of the year

"George W. Bush, when you get right down to it, is a fucker. That's why I don't like him. He's a fucker who does fucked-up things. He's a privileged little shit who doesn't give a damp hell for the opinions of the people he was elected to govern. He buys into the toxic economic theories of unreconstructed capitalism, despite never having had to earn an honest living in his life, and he supports a worldview that cuts out anyone who hasn't had his good fortune -- the worldview of a murderous plutocracy stained with swaths of luck and cruelty where first is first and second is nobody. He's stupid in the truest sense of the word: willfully ignorant and determined to surround himself with people who keep him that way, not only resistant to different ideas but actively hostile towards them. He is neurologically incapable of thinking ahead, and he consigns the consequences of his actions to the status of dreams. And he forced his country into a pointless, unnecessary, unconscionably wasteful war that will poison every aspect of American life for generations."
-- Mister Leonard Pierce, Alternet

McCain't

I'm a little worried.

It looks like the GOP may have found its great white hope. It is telling that the first two Republican governors to endorse John McCain were California's' Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida's Charlie Christ, the two party "centrists" that put the greatest distance between themselves and the Bush mob early on. Mark my words, everything that comes out of the mouths of the remaining Republican candidates will continue to evoke the nostalgia of the ultimate anti-Bush, the Alzheimer's Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the man who christened the corporatist ship-of-state, who with his avuncular, B-movie actor's charm, convinced a sizable share of America that government was the problem, not the solution (and never asking what that made him by association) while giving the CIA leave to smuggle and sell crack to fund the Contras. Yes, we can be entertained at least until "super" Tuesday (Super Bowl, super rich, super size me - what is it with us friggin' Americanos?) by McCain, Romney and Huckabee all trying to out-Reagan each other, while Ron Paul does his strange, Libertarian version of Dennis Kucinich. My guess is the nomination is McCain's to lose.

Whatever lingering respect I had for John McCain was lost when I watched him climb in George W. Bush's lap after being eviscerated by the Rovian slime machine during the 2000 primary season. It was at that point, in his hunger to one day occupy the Oval Office, that McCain stopped being his own man.

So why I am worried? Because I don't think Hillary Clinton can defeat John McCain. If Clinton is crowned as the candidate of the Democratic party, I fear that many young people, for whom Barak Obama represents their future, will sit this one out. I fear that some progressives, who see a palpable difference between Barak and Hilary, but not necessarily between her and McCain, may too. And the independents, who loathe the Clintons almost as much as their Republican half-siblings, will rationalize their votes for McCain. And meanwhile, the GOP war machine, aided and abetted by Rupert Murdoch, engineered by Karl Rove, will do what they do best. They may not even have to steal this one.

And what would a McCain presidency portend for the nation? Less jobs. More wars. The real McCain?