Hump day, hump day! And what a day. Basking in America's victory yesterday when West Virginia said loudly and clearly that Hillary Clinton's the best choice for the Democratic Party nomination. They are right.
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man, C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review, Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Wally of The Daily Jot, Ma of Trina's Kitchen and Marcia SICKOFITRDLZ.
Everyone knows I'm the slowest typist in the community. But sometimes that has benefits. :D Marcia just called me to say she can be in Kentucky on the weekend. We're all hitting the road for Hillary. Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess are going to South Dakota. Rebecca's camped out in Oregon. During the week, she's got Ava, C.I. and Kat (and now Ma). On the weekends, Ava, C.I., Kat and Ma will be in Puerto Rico, and I catch a plane tomorrow morning for Kentucky where I'll join Wally, Ruth and Cedric. (And, again, Marcia will be joining us on the weekends.)
We're trying to turn out the vote for the candidate who wants to work for America. Hillary Clinton wants to work for America. Barack wants to work for America if America will improve itself first. America's not good enough for Barack. He thinks we haven't lived up to our potential. Hillary loves America and loves Americans. Her message is: "Hold me accountable. Make me work for you." Barack scolds the country with "Stand up straight, wash your hands, do the chores I assign you and then I might go to work for you."
Prince Bambi doesn't think America's good enough.
Hillary knows we can work together. Barack doesn't want to include everyone. That's why he and the working class remain apart. He thinks he's too good for most of America.
Prince Babmi got cold water splashed in his face last night when Hillary won West Virginia by 41%. It was America saying, "We want someone who stands with us." The people of West Virginia weren't interested in supporting a flashy male model who thinks he's better than America.
If you missed it, John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama today. Thereby completing Edwards desire to sniff Barack's ass. John Edwards played scared puppy throughout the campaign. All Barack had to do was bark and John was on all fours, dropping to the floor, rolling over his back, getting in the weakness position and begging for mercy. I'm seriously concerned about John Edwards' mental health.
His endorsement makes him meaningless. Wally and I kept rooting for him, kept hoping, each week, that it would be the week where Edwards stood up. He never did. I don't know how to put this in fancy language so I'm just going to say it straight and will apologize ahead of time to anyone I offend: Edwards refused to be a man.
He was a little boy rushing after Barack. "Hey, Barack, take me along!" He was a little boy rushing off after Barack, a tag-along.
He did so badly -- and was the joke of campuses across America -- because he acted like Barack was his hero and not his opponent.
Did he have a crush on him? At times it seemed like he was campaigning to be Barack's prom date.
That's why he had problems with voters. Hillary's a fighter. She's not manly. I want to be clear on that. She's a strong fighter and proves to any doubters that women can be.
But John Edwards was a case of failed masculinity. He never came off like a man. He always came off like a little boy.
The few times Edwards did stand up, I applauded him. But every time, he'd get smacked around by Barack and back down. That's why there were really cruel jokes told about John Edwards. I didn't repeat them here but, judging by my e-mails when I was for Edwards, we all heard them. On campuses across the country.
The Courtship of John Edwards is complete, he endorsed Barack.
Elizabeth Edwards fought. If John had half the spirit of his wife, he'd still be in the campaign. Elizabeth Edwards should have been in the race.
But it was embarrassing to watch John, supporting him, in debate after debate sing Barack's praises or get punked by Barack and not stand up.
All the pathetic types were out for Barack today. Including NARAL. I forget what their name means because they've changed it so much. Cry baby Kate, crying in the Senate. Wally, Ava and C.I. have hilarious jokes about that. So useless NARAL, which can't even stop Senate confirmation of anti-choice judges, endorsed Bambi as well. It's part of the Roe is under threat! nonsense. That'll be addressed at Third on Sunday. NARAL's pathetic. They've done more to damage abortion rights than any other organization in the country.
I'm sick of the pathetics. Let's turn to the winners. This is Howard Wolfson's "HUBdate: Victory In West Virginia:"
Victory In West Virginia: Hillary won the West Virginia primary by a 41-point margin, earning 67 percent of the vote…In her victory speech, she told supporters that “there are some who have wanted to cut this race short. They say ‘give up, it's too hard, the mountain is too high,’ but here in West Virginia, you know a thing or two about rough roads to the top of the mountain… I’m in this race for the millions of Americans who know that we can do better in our country, for the nurse on her second shift, for the worker on the line, for the waitress on her feet, for the small business owner, the farmer, the teacher, the coal miner, the trucker, the soldier, the veteran, the college student.” Read more.
In Case You Missed It: Watch Communications Director Howard Wolfson on the significance of Hillary’s West Virginia victory: “This isn’t just a small victory, this is a huge victory. The media has been telling voters: Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee. It’s all over. Give up. Don’t come out and vote. And yet, in overwhelming numbers, they’ve come out and voted for Senator Clinton tonight.” Watch here.
Why West Virginia Matters: “The Mountain State is used to picking winners. Every nominee has carried the state’s primary since 1976, and no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916. Democrats carried West Virginia in 1992 and 1996, but lost the state - and the White House - in 2000 and 2004. Hillary has predicted victory against Sen. McCain in West Virginia based on the strength of her economic message. Given the attempts by our opponent and some in the media to declare this race over, any significant increase in voter turnout, coupled with a decisive Clinton victory, would send a strong message that Democrats remain excited and energized by Hillary’s candidacy.” Read more.
Hitting the Airwaves: Hillary appears on national news programs today including ABC World News, CBS Evening News, CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, FOX News, NBC Nightly News, and Noticiero Univision.
By The Numbers: A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that “more than six in 10 Democrats…64 percent…say Clinton should remain in the race.” A USA Today Poll also shows a majority of Democrats want Hillary to continue. (View the ABC poll and the USA Today article.)
Standing For You: In a Courier-Journal op-ed, Hillary writes to voters in Kentucky: “Day after day, I've been inspired by the people I've met -- people who embrace opportunity, never waver in the face of adversity, meet hard times with hard work, and never stop believing in the promise of America… The challenges we face are great, but the possibilities are endless if we roll up our sleeves and get to work with a president who works her heart out for you every day. I hope you will go to the polls on May 20 and give me the chance to be that president.” Read more.
On Tap: Hillary will campaign in South Dakota on Thursday and Oregon on Friday and Saturday.
This isn't over and Hillary win the Democratic nomination or the Democrats will lose the White House and suffer Congressional losses. Barack drags the ticket down. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, a bombing leads to multiple deaths, al-Maliki pulls a for-show stunt, John Edwards endorses a super-model, Hillary wins West Virginia, and more.
Starting with political realities. There have been reports that US Senator Barack Obama intends to declare himself the Democratic presidential nominee (click here for Tennessee Guerilla Women citing an outlet's report). It's possible that the campaign truly is that stupid. Making that declaration would be a disaster and most have focused on the p.r. when the bigger disaster would be the finanical one. Ava and I discussed this morning a number of realities including that if August seems to long to wait for a Democratic presidential nominee to take it up with the DNC that shoved the convention back so that the Democratic candidate would be running on a level playing field (financially) with the Republican candidate. We didn't factor in the alleged May announcement because we'd honestly forgotten it.
In 2004, John Kerry and the DNC considered delaying the nomination. Not because Kerry was at risk of losing it Why? Because the DNC convention was in July of 2004 and the GOP convention would wrap up in September. The Washington Post, May 2004: "Under federal law, each major-party nominee will receive a check for $74.69 million from the U.S. Treasury to finance the general election. Receipt of the money is triggered by formal acceptance of the nomination, and after that no money raised for the primaries can be used on behalf of each nominee's general election campaign." Read the article. The Kerry campaign and DNC were not talking about delaying the convention, they were talking about no announcement of the nominee being made at the convention and doing that later. That was one idea they were toying with. If the announcement is made, the FEC regulations kick in.
When John McCain's mentioned here we generally note he is the presumed nominee and often include the point that, barring some upset ("heart attack or scandal"), he will be the GOP nominee in the fall. Barack Obama making an announcement this month would result in one of two things. A) The DNC calls him out on it and he has egg on his face that the press laughs at from now until the convention. (Possibly beyond.) B) The DNC doesn't call him on it. If the DNC makes no statement that the nominee has not been decided and it is not in Barack Obama's power to declare himself the nominee, then Barack would be in the presidential spending cycle. In May. Defeating everything the DNC was hoping to achieve this year by pushing the convention back to August. Read the Washington Post article. The 2004 convention would take place but John Kerry would make a speech in August declaring himself the nominee and they intended to argue that the speech was when Kerry became the nominee. By the same token, if Barack declares himself the nominee before the convention and is not loudly rebuked by the DNC, the federal guidelines should kick in and you better believe the Republicans will argue that they should.
When one candidate is left standing (the 'norm' for those especially young), they still aren't the nominee until the declaration. Barack making such a declaration before the convention and doing so while another candidate remains in the race would be viewed as a formal acceptance (seizure) of the nomination and the FEC spending rules would kick in.
Along with the p.r. nightmare Barack would create by declaring himself the nominee, people better get real about what happens in terms of financing. And, if you missed it, Barack's engaged in a dance with the press about how he would finance a general election campaign. Declaring himself the nominee -- with no LOUD rebuke from the DNC -- would take the issue from the hypothetical into the near future into the immediate present. (While the GOP nominee would have months to decide what they intend to do.) Since, unlike 2004, there are still two candidates, Barack declaring himself the nominee to shut out Hillary would most likely have to be seen by the FEC as his nomination unless the DNC loudly rebuked him and the federal finance laws on the general election cycle would immediately kick in.
Barack shouldn't be able to declare himself the nominee. It's a tie and the rules and guidelines say it goes to the convention where it's decided. But if he does try to do that the two most likely outcomes are (A) he enters the general election finance period in May or (B)he is loudly rebuked by the DNC. If it's (A), he defeats the entire purpose of the DNC moving the convention to August for 2008. If it's (B), he becomes the laughingstock of the press and America which suddenly gets an education on how a nominee is decided and Barack's speech becomes his Dan Quayle potato moment (or, as Dan spelled it, "potatoe").
We'll return to politics later in the snapshot. Turning to war resistance, Jesse McLean (The Samia Observer) reports on war resister Richard Droste. Twenty-two-year-old Droste served in Iraq as a medica and then self-checked out after seeing what was really taking place in the illegal war. He says, "I was a stupid one and didn't see what we were really doing there until I was already there for four months." Now he's in Canada, where he's married to a Canadian citizen, and speaking out in favor of the Canadian Parliament granting safe harbor to US war resisters. He and Josh Randall spoke in Sarnia yeterday and he states, "It's not looking good. I'm worried the government in Canada right now is too bought into the American life" and if safe harbor isn't granted "you're going to see hundreds of objectors shipped back stateside, where a lot of them would probably get imprisoned."
Currently, you can utilize the following e-mails to show your support: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. In addition Jack Layton, NDP leader, has a contact form and they would like to hear from people as well. A few more addresses can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use.
Meanwhile George Bryson (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that a US judge, John D. Roberts, has declared that paratrooper Michael Barnes is a conscientious objector. In the Anchorage Daily News, Bryson explains that Barnes enlisted in 2005 and was sent to Iraq where he realized he was a conscientious objector. Bryson notes: "In a 26-page recommendation to the U.S. District Court, Roberts noted that the Army failed to show 'any basis in fact' to support its decision to deny Barnes' petition to be honorably discharged due to his religious beliefs. At the same time, the record includes strong reasons to justify the request, including Barnes' own testimony, supporting letters from fellow soldiers and the opinion of an Army chaplain, the judge said." He is not the first war resister to require a court interceeding. Robert Zabala is the most recent example and Agustin Aguayo is hoping the Supreme Court will intercede on his behalf.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Turning to Iraq where the violence, like the illegal war, never ends. Reuters notes a bombing resulting in mass deaths at an Al Anbar Province funeral. AP notes the death toll is 22 and that: "The bomber blew himself up inside a funeral tent in the village of Abu Minasir, just west of the capital. Police say that funeral was for Taha Obaid, the principle who was shot and killed one day before in his school. There was no reason known for Wednesday's killing, but many members of so-called Awakening Councils, Sunnis who switched allegiance and are now fighting al Qaeda, were attending the funeral. Col. Faisal al-Zubaie, the director of police in nearby Fallujah, says the original death toll was 18, but some people died later.
In other reported violence." Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) notes that the principle was Taha Obaid Zubai and identifies him as "a member of the Islamic Party" and the cousin of "Faisal Zubair, . . .the Fallouja police commander." The "Awakening" Council members are paid $300 US dollars a day by the US government. al Qaeda in Iraq has always been a small presence and the ones on the payroll of the US government today are mainly paid to not attack US service members (as Petraeus and Crocker repeatedly admitted/bragged in their April Congressional testimony). In other reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing targeting Iraqi parliamentarian Ayad Al Samarai which did not kill him but claimed the lives of 3 bystanders and wounded twenty-seven people, a Baghdad 'female suicide bomber' who claimed her own life as well as 1 Iraqi military captain and 1 Iraqi soldier while injuring four more Iraqi soldiers, a Baghdad roadside bombing that targeted another Iraqi parliamentarian, Abdul Kareem Al Samari, and claimed the lives of 3 of his bodyguards (he survived) and left seven people injured, a land mine bombing in Sulaimaniyah claimed the life of an NGO worker with another wounded, while a bag bombing in Sulaimaniyah left three children wounded.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports armed clashes in Sadr City continued and claimed 6 lives with fourteen more wounded.
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses discovered in Baghdad,
Sulaimaniyah
In other news, Reuters reports puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki has headed to Mosul to oversee the assault and has dubbed the ones under attack "terrorists" and "criminals." al-Maliki last oversaw the failed campaign in Basra which created the current conflict in Sadr City.
In US political news, West Virginia held a primary yesterday. As the Boston Globe headline proclaimed, "Clinton Crushes Obama in W. Va." With 100% precints reporting, Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by 41% and exit polling revealed a number stating that if Barack was the Democratic Party nominee, they would vote for John McCain in November. On NBC's Today Show this morning, Matt Lauer noted that the voters rejected the conventional wisdom the pundits keep pushing: that Barack is the nominee; while Andrea Mitchell noted problems in the upcoming primary in Kentucky "unless there is a major change in the way he connects to people." Barack Obama is in a tie with Hillary Clinton. Neither will finish the primaries with enough delegates awarded to claim the nomination. The rules and guidelines dictate that the decision be made at the August convention. In the meantime the 'invincible' Barack seems even less so but David Gregory assured Lauer that "new math" was being used by the Obama campaign and that they are convinced he can lure Republican states in the last two elections based on his 'appeal' to Latino voters -- an appeal that did not exist in Texas, California or Florida. Hillary declared in her victory speech last night, "After tonight's tremendous victory here in West Virginia, it's clear that the pundits declaring this race over have it all wrong. The voters in West Virginia spoke loud and clear -- they want this contest to go on." If there were a nominee selected by the people, the press-appointed nominee wouldn't have lost yesterday's primary by 41%.
Meanwhile, yes, it's true, John Edwards, former Democratic presidential candidate this year (and 2004 vice presidential nominee) appeared on TV today to make an endorsement. His taped announcement appeared at the end of The Tyra Banks Show where he joined other celebrities (such as Will & Grace's Debra Messing) in congratulating Tyra on her 500th show and wishing her many more episodes. With Merv Griffin and Michael Douglas no longer having TV shows, Edwards spoke live to endorse Barack Obama, the candidate who repeatedly punked him on stage, the one he refused to stand up to, the refusal that led to American voters seeing him as weak. At this late date and considering his non-stop desire to act as if his campaign existed for him to be part of an Obama entourage, no one gives a damn. Edwards joined Barack, Tim Russert and Brian Williams in the tag-team bashing of Hillary -- the debate FAIR didn't think warranted a "media advisory." He was a weak candidate who couldn't finish. His endorsement is meaningless. But it was nice to see him on Tyra playing the grinning fool he does too well.
Today Hillary Clinton explained what's at stake:
There are some people out there who want to declare this race over now, before all the ballots have been counted or even cast. There are some who say they don't know why I'm in this race. So let me tell you why I'm still running.
I'm in this race for everyone who needs a champion. For the hardworking families who are losing sleep over gas prices and grocery costs and mortgage payments and medical bills -- but who never lose that American can-do spirit and optimism.
I'm in this race for the more than 16 million people like you who have supported me -- for the people who have put their hearts into winning this race. You never gave up on me, and I'll never give up on you.
We are in the homestretch. After sixteen months, there are only three weeks left to compete in the final contests. With your help I'm going to keep fighting until every last American has a chance to be heard, and as we learned last night in West Virginia, I know we can win.
Contribute now to keep our campaign going strong.
I'm also in this race because I have the best chance of beating John McCain in November and putting America on the right track.
We proved something in West Virginia last night -- a state every Democratic president has won since 1916. And we proved something in a few other battleground states that have a history of picking presidents. Pennsylvania. Ohio. Arkansas. New Hampshire. New Jersey. New Mexico. Nevada. And, yes, Michigan and Florida.
I am in this race, and so are you, because we both know the stakes in this election are too high to stay on the sidelines.
So let's keep going together, you and me. Let's keep driving our campaign forward, and let's keep winning.
Make a contribution today to help me win.
I want to thank you again for the incredible generosity of spirit you have shown over the course of this campaign. Together, you and I are going to make history.
Turning to Team Nader:
While most of us sit in front of screens typing and searching, Ralph Nader still types out his prose on a manual Underwood typewriter.
On Monday, Mr. Underwood traveled to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Nader is not easily dazzled by technological wonders.
Throughout his career, Nader has confronted head-on the downside of nuclear, automobile, genetic engineering and other industrial advances.
And now he's questioning the enormous amount of time we spend in front of our computers.
Has Google and the information revolution that it leads made our society better?
Or is it just another mass diversion from the reality of the corporate takeover of our democracy?
At Googleland, Nader took questions for an hour.
And then sat down for an eight-minute interview with Youtube.
Nader/Gonzalez is confronting head-on the reality of the corporate takeover of our democracy.
As you know this week, we are raising money to get Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot in the Land of Lincoln - Illinois.
In just five short days, 462 of you - on-line and face-to-face at Nader/Gonzalez rallies on the West Coast - have donated $43,718.
Thank you.
We need just another 70 of you - our loyal supporters - to donate $100 each - to reach our Illinois goal of $50,000.
the common ills
like maria said pazkats korner
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
trinas kitchen
the daily jot
cedrics big mix
mikey likes it
thomas friedman is a great man
ruths report
sickofitradlz
the third estate sunday review
iraq
richard drostejesse mclean
nbctodaymatt lauerandrea mitchellcbs newsdean reynolds
mcclatchy newspapers
tina susmanthe los angeles times
the washington post
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Hillary wins West Virginia
Tuesday. And it's a pretty important day. Hillary's expected to win West Virginia.
But my local paper has a story on three people who voted for Barry Obama. The first is a man who doesn't think women should be president, the second is sick of everyone in DC (which would include Barry, but let her dream) and the third is a woman who explains, "I want John MCain to win and I think that Hillary would have a better chance of beating him." That's the Barack 'movement' for you -- the sexists, the deluded and the fakers.
This from CNN: "Sen. Hillary Clinton will win West Virginia's Democratic primary by a wide margin, CNN projects."
2004 was the first presidential election I could vote in. I voted for my state's senator who was an effete loser and lost the election, John Kerry. John Kerry may lose his Senate seat. If he does, no one I know will shed any tears.
But as I get ready for my second presidential election, I'm going to share a few things I've learned.
*Amy Goodman and all the rest in Panhandle Media are liars. They lie and lie and lie. They can't tell the truth because they're too vested in subverting the truth and tricking you. I never realized how awful she was until this election cycle. She's just a filthy liar who stacked her show by allowing Barack supporters and campaigners to come on as 'objective' guests. If she'd billed them for what they were, people would have caught on sooner that she was shutting out Hillary supporters and using her crap-ass show to push Barack. She's a liar.
* Sexism is a-okay when you use it on someone you don't like. The Nation, Amy Goodman, The Progressive and all the rest have made that clear. They've all used sexism to try to destroy Hillary.
* Homophobia is a-okay as well when used by Democrats. Notice that Panhandle Media couldn't shut up about John Hagee (or whatever his name is) being homophobic because he endorsed John McCain but they stayed silent when Barack Obama booked four homophobes for a South Carolina event. They stayed silent when gay rights groups protested. They stayed silent when Barack went ahead with the event. They stayed silent when his campaign bragged they got what the needed out of the event. They have never called him out.
* There is no 'independent' media. There are just liars with no standards who couldn't work in Real Media.
* The workers in 'independent' media are NUTS. Dave Lindorff saying Barack "risked jail as a Black man to do drugs" and saying that's why people should support Barack proved that those working in 'independent' media are crackpots.
* Count every vote is a cry only when it's too your benefit. They ignored Florida and Michigan. These people who claim to look out for the disenfranchised were happy to take their marching orders from the Obama campaign even though it meant turning their backs on millions of disenfranchised people.
* They are liars. They are scum. They are trash and no one should give them a penny. Ever.
* The Green Party is not a real party. This was made clear as Kimberly Wilder, Medea Benjaim, Ted Glick and so many others butted into a Democratic Party not to call out the two remaining candidates but to screw over Hillary. They are not a real political party. The leadership betrayed the members. The party exists (at the top) only to get Democrats into office. They are liars.
* Smartest thing Ralph Nader could have done this election cycle was tell the Green Party leaders to kiss his ass. Those 'leaders' ensure that there will never be a real challenge to the two party system. They are frauds and fakes. If Hillary doesn't get the Democratic nomination, I'll be voting for Ralph Nader. It will send a message to two parties: The Democratic Party and their little sister The Green Party.
This is "HUBdate: Election Day in West Virginia:"
By the Numbers: A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that "more than six in 10 Democrats...64 percent...say Clinton should remain in the race." A USA Today Poll also shows a majority of Democrats want Hillary to continue. Read more and more.
"Honored to Have Hillary" Yesterday, Hillary made a campaign stop at Westside High School in Wyoming County, WV. "While the hoarseness in her voice indicated the strains of campaigning, her enthusiasm remained strong...'I'm honored to have Hillary in Wyoming County,' noted Delegate Richard Browning... 'This speaks volumes about who she cares about -- the small town people.'" Read more.
On the Air: In a new radio ad, Hillary encourages West Virginians to get out and vote: "We can pick a president. After all, no Democrat has been elected president without winning West Virginia for almost a hundred years." Listen here.
"Clinton Fever Hits Bowling Green" "Clinton fever has come to Bowling Green. 'Kentucky for Hillary' opened a new office and held an open house Monday. Crowds turned out to show support for their favorite candidate. A candidate they hope will stand out in Kentucky next week... 'The woman has a lot of purpose,' said Barbara Burns, a Clinton supporter. 'She wants to serve our country as best she can, and I believe she can do that as president.'" Read more.
SD Endorsement Watch: Yesterday, 41 former South Dakota state legislators and constitutional officers endorsed Hillary for President. "With over 330 years of combined experience," they believe that "South Dakotans need a President who will stand with them." Former State Representative Al Waltman said, "Hillary Clinton has real solutions to our economic problems…and she has the experience and resolve to make those plans a reality." Read more.
Previewing Today: Hillary celebrates election night in Charleston, WV.
On Tap: This Friday and Saturday, Hillary returns to the Beaver State, where she will meet with Oregonians from across the state.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, May 13, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces a death, West Virigina votes today, the Congress loves veterans . . . as long as they don't expect what's been promised, and more.
Starting with war resistance. The May 2nd snapshot noted war resister Ryan Jackson who turned himself in and was waiting to find out what was next. Courage to Resist reports: "War objector Army PFC Ryan Jackson was temporarily moved from his brig cell yesterday and arraigned at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Ryan was formally changed with multiple counts of AWOL stemming from his attempt to be released from the Army prior to Iraq deployment. He is scheduled to face a special court martial--with a maximum one year prison sentence--on Tuesday, June 3. Since voluntarily returning to Fort Gordon on April 14 and formally applying for a conscientious objector discharge, Ryan has been held in pre-trial confinement at the Charleston Navel Brig. Write to Ryan Donate to Ryan's defense Attend Ryan's court martial."
That's the US, in Canada, war resisters are hoping the Parliament will take action on a motion waiting to be debated. Currently, you can utilize the following e-mails to show your support: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. In addition Jack Layton, NDP leader, has a contact form and they would like to hear from people as well. A few more addresses can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
In an editorial, The Honolulu Star-Bulletin observes, "The Bush administration has been lowballing the cost of the war in Iraq since it began more than five years ago, and the true surge will not be known for decades. Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press indicate that the cost of care for disabled veterans will more than double today's exependitures. That may be erring on the low side but still is intolerable. The government now spends $29 billion a year in compensation to injured warriors, including those from previous wars, but that figure is expected to reach $59 billion in 25 years." Jennifer C. Kerr (AP) noted Sunday, "Increasing numbers of U.S. troops have left the military with damaged bodies and minds, a pool of disabled veterans that will cost the nation billions of dollars for decades. . . . VA officials were not eager to talk about reasons for the increases. They declined several requests for interviews. In a written response to a handful of questions, the agency noted a few factors at play in rising costs, such as the aging veteran population, an increase in the number of disability claims and the severity of injuries suffered. Outside experts provided more insight." A Los Angeles Times' editorial entitled "War wounds we don't see" notes: "The cost of treating brain injuries in 2007 ranged from $26,000 for mild cases to $409,000 for severe ones. The survey estimated that costs for treating post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in the first two years after deployment are as high as $6 billion. Pain, heartache and blighted young lives, of course, are incalculable."
Dropping back to the May 9th snapshot: "Today Paul Kane (Washington Post) reports that
'Blue Dog Democrats' are in opposition to a House measure specifically because of 'the creation of a program that would guarantee veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan a year of in-state college tuition for each year served in the war zones'." Rick Maze (Army Times) examines the threat to the bill and quotes American Legion's national commander Mart Conaster explaining AL had to fight "in 19944 for the orginal" GI Bill "even some veterans' groups complained that it would break the treasury. Instead, the GI Bill transformed the economy and has been widely hailed as the greatest domestic legislation Congress has ever passed." John Young (Waco Tribune) observes, "It's only when people return from battle that we become sticklers for decimal points" and goes on to point out that what has the Pentagon and Senator John McCain upset isn't the cost apparently but the fact that education benefits would be available after three and not six years (and that six wasn't required for the original GI Bill). From the April 17th snapshot: "Thomas L. Bush is the Acting Deputy Assistant Secreteary of Defense for Reserve Affairs at DoD. Last month he was telling the press that increasing education benefits for service members will increase 'the risk that many who enter for the benefits will leave as soon as they can use them.' Yesterday he repeated his assertion that DoD 'does not believe that the basic structure of the Montgomery GI Bill is broken'."
The Pentagon's head, Sec of Defense Robert Gates, treked it over to Colorado Springs, CO today to participate in a conservative 'think'-tank's day of seminars. The 'think'-tank is the Heritage Foundation and Gates didn't speak on the "Green Gone Wild: Elevating Nature ABove Human Rights" panel but tax payers have every right to ask exactly what he was doing promoting a private organization's day of seminars to begin with? Josh White (Washington Post) explains the big take-away: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today implored the U.S. military to focus more on wars against insurgents and militias such as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than focusing time and money on potential conflicts." That's nothing new and was the point of the April 17th House Armed Service Committee's Strategic Forces Subcomittee hearing as well as Gates' April 21st speech. As Mark Thompson (Time magazine) observed, "Gate's comments richoeted at supersonic speed around the Pentagon and across broader defense networks, as officers -- and contracters -- tried to parse their implications. His bottom line: The Air Force ought to be less concerned with buying more $350 million F-22 fighters for use in future wars that may never happen, and do more to deliver what is needed to fight the wars currently underway 'while their outcome may still be in doubt'." Gates was delivering his standard speech today with a few modifcations.
For instance there was Gates' insult to DC which goes beyond mere 'joke' when you grasp the 'think'-tanks target audience: "It is always good to be away from Washington, DC -- and of course the beauty of the Broadmoor and Colorado Springs make it especially difficult to go back to the place where many folks often become lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar territory." There was also his opinion that the outcome with Vietnam resulted in "profound damage" to the US military military as a result of "the reality of defeat in that war." Surely some revisionary historians are gasping for air having spent the last decades trying to rewrite the defeat. While Gates gave a little honesty about the Vietnam era (only a little) today, Senator Barack Obama gave a lot of lies by repeating right-wing garbage about Vietnam returns being "shunned, demonized and neglected". No, The Nation, The Progressive or any of the other filth that regularly promises to hold his feet to the fire (Tom Hayden, Laura Flanders) someday didn't find the comments worth calling out. But then, they never do, do they? And for the record, this is not the first (or second, or third) attack on the peace movement during Vietnam from Barack. We'll get into his politics more in the politics section.
In Baghdad the Sadr City cease-fire/truce is supposed to be the answer. Anna Badkhen (Christian Science Montior) reports on a problem when ever Iraqis flee their homes to escape fighting -- empty homes that they may or may not be able to reclaim. Badkhen reports that US Capt Andrew Betson states US policy is to allow squatters in the homes and the original inhabitants "basically have to stay displaced, they have to stay wherever they are" and turn the matter over to a local council to resolve. At Salon, Badkhen cites 1st Sgt. James Braet explaining how US monies are used: "In addition to distributing $2,400 micro-grants to businesses that want to reopen inside Saidiyah, and occasionally handing out goodies such as school backpacks and soccer balls to the neighborhood children, the U.S. military here pays a monthly salary of approximately $300 to about 300 people, Braet says. Some of them work on the neighborhood council, and some of them are members of a pro-government Sunni militia called Sons of Iraq" and quote Braet stating, "I'd say 80 percent of these people we pay don't do anything. It's just free money." Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reported over the weekend, "Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. In return, Sadr's Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government's agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of 'medium and heavy weaponry'." Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) notes, "Representatives of Iraq's main Shiite Muslim factions signed a deal Monday clearing the way for Iraqi soldiers to operate throughout Sadr City, a vast Baghdad slum that is largely under the control of militiamen loyal to firebrand cleric Muqtada Sadr. The signatures put an official seal to a truce brokered over the weekend by Sadr's political representatives and members of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's governing alliance." But Selcan Hacaoglu (AP) notes the "fragile cease-fire failed to stop fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City where the latest clashes between Shiite extremists and U.S.-backed Iraqi forces killed 11 men and wounded 19, Iraqi hospital officials said Tuesday." CBS and AP explain, "It was not immediately clear if those killed in the clashes, which escalated early Tuesday, were militants or civilians. There were women and children among the wounded, said hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media." AFP reports that despite the cease-fire being signed "both sides said it will be Wednesday before they fully implement it on the ground." NPR's Ivan Watson (on Morning Edition today) reports on Sadr City and notes that the taxi driver is also a Mahdi fighter who declares, "We can survive the siege for a long time. If Moqtada Sadr gives us the order then we'll go, one by one, and pull the American soldiers from their tanks." Waleed Ibrahim and Wisam Mohammed (Reuters) report that not all are certain of al-Sadr's control/leadership and quotes Baghdad University professor Kadhum al-Muqdadi on the continued fighting, "It is clear that Sadr does not control all of the armed groups that make up the Mehdi Army. This fighting could last a long time." They also quote Sadr spokesperson Luwaa Sumaisem insisting, "Ceasefires cannot always be implemented immediately. Violations will happen in the first few days. Some armed groups may not be aware of it."
In other reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing injured five people, a US air strike claimed 5 lives and left four injured (cites Imam Ali Hospital), a Mosul roadside bombing that claimed the lives of 5 Iraqi troops and a Kirkuk car bombing that injured ten people. Reuters notes a Mosul bombing that left two children injured.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 4 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Today (PDF format warning) the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division -- Baghdad Soldier was killed when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in northwestern Baghdad at approximately 7 p.m. May 13." The total number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war currently stands at 4077.
Turning to US politics . . .
Meanwhile AP reports: "The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees. Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department's Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored."
Let's go to MTV "News" where Gil Kaufman is a certifiable idiot. First he repeats Barack's claim that the US is "facing the largest homecoming since the Second World War." When he needs a fact, he just makes it up and his MOANING THAT HE'S WEARING BLUE JEANS press pack, is too STUPID to say, "Hey, how man troops did the US deploy to Vietnam?" Gil then decares that there is a "near-mathematical impossibility of her beating Obama for the nomination" -- what?????? Look, you're a reporter -- a bad one -- but a reporter. When you don't know what you're talking about, you 'research' it (make phone calls). Here's reality: neither Hillary or Barack will reach the magic number. Unless one of them drops out, this could go to the convention. If it does, there are no "pledged delegates." Super delegates can change their minds at any time. But, at the convention, pledged delegates make their own decisions. As Big Tent Democrat (TalkLeft) observes, it's probably not a good idea for Barack's campaign to be applauding a pledged delegate to Hillary (Jack B. Johnson) who states he'll "support Obama at the August convention."
Can Johnson, sent by the state (he's not a super delegate) to be a Hillary delegate, change his vote at the convention? Absolutely. And those of us who survived Miami in 1972 know very well that on the floor of the convention there are no promises. George McGovern himself proved that as he stabbed women OVER AND OVER in the back and sent out a woman to try to explain his betrayals and justify them. (Coward then, coward now: George McGovern. See Rebecca's "george mcgovern, start worrying about the after-life.") But Barack's campaign's applauding that. Good. Maybe it will make the press wake up to how STUPID they are. There is no winner. There will be no winner. There is a set number that the nominee has to reach. If no one reaches it and there's more than one standing, the issue is supposed to be resolved at the convention. Translation, NO ONE HAS A LOCK on the nomination. No one. Now those old enough to remember past Democratic nominations decided on the convention floor could explain that but the elders went AWOL in the party sometime ago, mouthing meaningless patter about 'movement.'
Christopher Hayes (The Nation, gets a link because he's a nice guy) can't understand why the media notes Barack's religion by stating he 'says he's a Christian.' Allow us to break it down for you. Thus far, mainstream journalists have attempted to locate Barack's baptismal record. Can't find it. And a number with the church when Barack started showing up there say (to the press) it's due to the fact that Barack wasn't baptised. What did he do May 4th? What he always does. On NBC's Meet The Press, he insisted he was "uh a Christian" and then went on to list what Wright had done for his family including baptizing Barack's children. But where was Barack's baptism. I know it's hard for a lot in Panhandle Media to grasp due to not being religious or not being part of a religion that requires baptism. However, Barack says he's a Christian and says he's a member of a church. The church and the faith requires those coming to the Lord to be baptiszed -- regardless of age. Those changing churches can simply have their baptismal records forwarded (the church secretary takes care of that). If someone's not grasping it, if Barack wasn't baptized -- and that is becoming the consensus in the press -- he's yet again misrepresented himself to the public. He can try to fix it by claiming, "Well, I came to God on my own." But he hasn't said that. He's stated he's a Christian and stated that a church was his church. Allowing people to believe he'd been baptized in that faith. If he never was, he misrepresented and that will be one of the kinder things said about him. And that is what will rally the religious right to the polls for John McCain in November. If you don't grasp that, you don't grasp religion. Here's Barack speaking to Tim Russert from Meet The Press' transcript (which leaves out the 'uh-uh's):
And, as a consequence, when Reverend Wright, who married me and baptized our, our children, when he made those statements, or I learned of those statements that I found so objectionable, I, I .
What's missing? Barack saying Wright baptized him. (Again, the press consensus is becoming that it never happened.) He doesn't mention it in either of his books. A grown man getting baptised, you'd assume he'd have an anecdote. This would be an issue in the general election if he got the nomination.
If you disagree, note this from conservative ("crunchy con") Rod Dreher (Dallas Morning News):
His former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is an unreconstructed '60s radical, a fire-breathing disciple of James Cone's period-piece black liberation theology. Mr. Obama wrote in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, about his attraction to the leftist pastor's church as a vehicle for social change. If black nationalism would uplift the race, he wrote, "then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."
That's a remarkable admission of a racialized "ends justify the means" morality. It helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to stick with a crackpot like Dr. Wright. It also might explain why an up-and-coming Barack Obama found nothing particularly wrong with rubbing political elbows with Bill Ayers, the Chicago university professor and onetime fugitive member of the revolutionary, communist Weather Underground.
You can use the link to read the entire piece. If Barack wasn't baptised, the GOP attack will include that and it will effect voters (including some of Barack's core support because the word for many church goers -- of all races -- will be stronger than "fraud"). Meanwhile, Egalia (Tennessee Guerilla Women) notes, "So many women in the media have remained silent" during the non-stop sexist attacks on Hillary and post a clip of ABC's This Week where Cokie Roberts (who has called it out before during this election cycle) again pointed out the double standards. Marie Cocco (link goes to Real Clear Politics -- Cocco is syndicated by the Washington Post) appears to write a burial for the Clinton campaign (it's not over, Marie) and finds her voice to speak out against some of the sexism (left out of the list are the writings at the website which reposts her for free). It's a greatest hits of the most obvious. Cocco notes: "I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't uttered a word of public outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York." Don't stop there, Marie. As we all know Laura Flanders has defended Laura Bush, Condi Rice and countless other GOP women in print and over the radio when they were attacked for or discriminated against due to gender. But the self-loathing lesbian Laura Flanders couldn't call it out. And The Nation thought it was cute to print all those sexist attacks on Hillary, as did The Progressive, as did . . . The entire Panhandle Media. This will not be forgotten. And it's not hurting feminism, it only fuels greater strength.
And just as the sexism will not be forgotten, the campaign isn't over. Fernando Suarez (CBS News) quotes Hillary explaining, "West Virginia has a record of picking presidents. West Virginia made it possible for President Kennedy to become president of the United States. West Virginia in the general election votes for the winner and if West Virginia had voted for our Democratic nominee in 2000 and 2004 we wouldn't have had to put up with George Bush." Yesterday 41 former South Dakota state legislators and Constitutional Officiaers endorsed Hillary. I guess they didn't hear that the race was over? Or maybe they weren't foolish enough to believe the spin. The race isn't over. There are two candidates left in the Democratic primary and they are in a dead-heat. Neither will finish the race with enough pledged delegates to be declared the winner or to declare themselves the winner. And while the Obama Groupies run to a largely compliant press yelling "Shut it down!" the people want it to continue. The new ABC News - Washington Post poll finds 64% want the race to play out. Read Elaine's "Debates" in context of the poll and realize how badly Panhandle Media failed America by refusing to call out Barack's refusal to debate. Lindsay Levin (HillaryClinton.com) points out, "In the face of grim poll numbers, the Obama campaign has attempted to dismiss today's outcome despite the fact that Sen. Obama has outspent us on advertising, has more staff in the state, and more than double the number of offices. He has also benifted from the support of the most high-profile endorses in West Virginia -- Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Congressman Nick Rahall. By every measure, the Obama campaign has waged an aggressive campaign in the Mountain State. Despite being the so-called 'presumptive nominee' and benefiting from these advantages, Sen. Obama has been unable to close a significant gap in the polls. Sen. Clinton has already won Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan. With a win in West Virginia, Sen. Clinton will have once again proven her greater ability to win in the key swing states." Lastly Jake Tapper (ABC News) notes how no matter what happens in the Obama campaign, "It's never my fault!" is the cry of Barack.
the common ills
mikey likes it
iraq
paul kanethe washington post
josh white
anna badkhen
alexandra zavisthe los angeles times
leila fadelmcclatchy newspapers
fernando suarez
jake tapper
Monday, May 12, 2008
Third, Hillary, let the process proceed, etc.
Monday, Monday. Need a good laugh to start the week with? Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Electable?"
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
and Marcia SICKOFITRDLZ.
And here's what we came up with.
Biggest crap of the week -- Donna Brazile. Actually what she said, but she's a big piece of crap too.
A note to our readers -- Jim breaks down the edition and notes most of us had Mother's Day stuff to do so we broke early to get sleep and then do that and got back together later in the day. Jim's right we really could have posted if we'd stayed up thirty minutes more. He forgot to tell you which was the last piece (I think he did).
Editorial: Bye-bye Cynthia McKinney -- A presidential campaign is a campaign where a candidate runs for the presidency. Running for 5% of the vote is not running for the presidency. Cynthia McKinney does not think she will win and thinks 'victory' is 5% of the vote. Ted Glick said that on Democracy Now, McKinney's campaign site linked to it and said he speaks for her. None of us have time for campaigns that are not real ones. Especially C.I. who does all the heavy lifting in the community. There's no longer any reason to include McKinney in the snapshots or in coverage elsewhere. She is not a real candidate.
TV: Tiny Tots -- I really love this. They're talking about a number of things and weaving it all together and making you laugh. And "they" is, of course, Ava and C.I. This really covers a huge terrain.
Barack's message to veterans "Get lost" -- This, the editorial and another piece were three that were held by Jim (three topics C.I. planned to cover last week at The Common Ills). We did this one and I think it turned out really well. We working so quick and were really tired because we were rushing. If it weren't for the TV thing (Jim read it out loud to us after Ava and C.I. finished it), we probably wouldn't have had the energy for this. It also features little cards -- actually most of the features below feature them. That was an idea C.I. and Wally came up with via Laugh In.
Roundtable -- We even did a roundtable! We did this first. This went really quick. I don't know how. Maybe because of Jim? But it went really quick and we're covering a number of topics.
The 527 of the Democratic Party (it's Green) -- This is about Green Party 'members' who write articles that praise Barack and slam Hillary. Funny, I thought the Green Party was it's own political party but apparently it's just an arm of the Democratic Party. I thought they had candidates in almost all the states. But all they can do is make time to slam Hillary. Maybe they think they're Democrats? Maybe they think that because they really are? Ted Glick, Medea Benjamin and many more claim to be Green's but they've got their big noses in the Democratic primary? Maybe the Green Party is so dull that their public leaders can't be bothered with it?
Remember Otto? The Nation appears to forget -- This is a great feature and, yes, it can be carried up to present day. And maybe it should?
Yes, they really are that stupid -- This was the last thing we wrote. We came back from the break and wrote this. Since it really wasn't planned, we could have just posted what we had earlier in the morning.
Happy Mothers Day -- But if we'd done that, we wouldn't have been able to add Hillary's Sunday HUBdate.
Highlights -- Kat, Betty, Ruth, Rebecca, Marcia, Wally, Cedric, Elaine and I wrote this.
Monday, May 12, 2008. Chaos and violence continues, a 'truce' in Sadr City, bombings in northern Iraq, the US presidential race and more.
Starting with war resistance, Iraq Veterans Against the War chair Camilo Mejia, author of Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, is the first Iraq War veteran to publicly resist the illegal war. Cindy Von Quednow (The Daily Sundial) reports, "An an immigrant, Mejia has strong opinions about the notion that Latinos are targeted by recruiters to join the armed forces. '(Recruiters) use the lack of benefits of Latinos and immigrants to lure people in,' he said. 'The biggest problem is that they don't give all the information, they only give the pretty information, which is not the true picture.' According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Latinos made up 13 percent of the enlisted military personnel in 2006, compared to 18 percent of the civilian population, and there is an effort to increase those numbers to 22 percent. As reported in The New York Times, the Pentagon started an advertising campaign through the Spanish-language media to exclusively appeal to Latinos. 'It you look at documents released by the Pentagon and the federal government, they have deliberate attempt to recruit and socialize young Chicanos and Latinos for the military,' said Rosa Furumoto, assistant professor of Chicano/a Studies at CSUN."
While young Latinos are under attack in the US, in Canada, war resisters are hoping the Parliament will take action on a motion waiting to be debated. Currently, you can utilize the following e-mails to show your support: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. In addition Jack Layton, NDP leader, has a contact form and they would like to hear from people as well. A few more addresses can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Jamie Leigh Jones was a contractor for Halliburton's KBR, sent to Iraq, gang-raped by her co-workers and held in a pod. Maddy Sauer (ABC News) reports that Jones case will go to court despite Halliburton's absurd claim that arbitration can be used and that District Judge Keith Ellison "wrote in his order Friday that Jones' claims of sexaul assault, battery, rape, false imprisonment and others fall beyond the scope of her cemployment." Previous ABC News coverage of Jones can be found here and here. Sonia Verman (Times of London) reports, "The decision has opened the door for other American women who have reported sexual assaults in similar circumstances to challenge clauses in their employment contracts restricting such claims to private arbitration and keeping them out of court. It comes at a time when the US Congress is examing whether the Government is adequately protecting contractors who allege sexual assault." Meanwhile Emma Schwartz (US News & World Reports) notes that Alaa ("Alex") Mohammad Ali ("Iraqi-born Canadian) will be "the first civilian contractor in Iraq" to be court-martialed "under the military justice system". The Orillia Packet & Times notes, he "is accused of stabbing another contractor four times during a fight in February on a base west of Baghdad" and that this is "the first such military prosecution since the Vietnam War."
Meanwhile a book in England, or at least a section of it (excerpt here at the Times of London), has caught the attention of many including Rosalin Ryan (Guardian of London), Robert Winnett (Telegraph of London) and The Hindu Times. The book, by attorney Cherie Booth Blair, includes a section detailing her 2002 miscarriage and how her husband, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, 'handled' it. Despite phoning that he'd be there "straight away," Booth Blair writes, Tony instead ran off to inform Alastair and the two men phoned her to tell her that the Blairs' announced vacation presented a problem because with the Iraq War impending, if the vacation were cancelled (as it would need to be) with no explanation, people might assume it had something to do with the upcoming war. Booth Blair was informed that her miscarriage needed to be announced to the media immediately. Booth Blair writes: "They had decided that the best thing was to tell the press that I'd had a miscarriage. I couldn't believe it. There I was, bleeding, and they were talking about what was going to be the line to the press. I put down the receiver and lay there staring at the ceiling, as pain began to grip."
In Iraq, tensions between northern Iraq and Turkey continue. Hurriyet reports: "Turkish jets bombed on Sunday the Nerwa and Rekan areas in northern Iraq, the website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) reported. Turkish jets also bombed mountainous areas in the Zakho district of Duhok province earlier on Sunday, PUK media reported, adding Turkish artillery sporadically shelled the same areas." Reuters quotes Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga security forces spokesperson Jabbar Yawar stating that the bombings resulted in no deaths or wounded. Suzan Fraser (AP) reminds, "Turkey has launched several cross-border aerial attacks this year to stamp out PKK bases in northern Iraq. The military also sent ground troops into Iraq in February for an eight-day cross-border incursion in pursuit of the rebels."
Further into Iraq, Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reported over the weekend, "Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. In return, Sadr's Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government's agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of 'medium and heavy weaponry'." The immediate impact? Hala Jaber (Times of London) reported: "A humvee military vehicle idles on a broad avenue as an Iraqi army soldier walks nonchalantly past without so much as a glance at the body slung across the bonnet.The dead man's trousers have been pulled down to his ankles, exposing white underwear below a torn T-shirt drenched in blood from wounds to his chest and side. Behind is a second Humvee with another body sprawled over the front, arms and legs outstretched. On his white shirt, a large bloodstain indicates the wound that may have killed him. A soldier sitting on the roof dangles his legs over the windscreen and seems to prod the corpse's stomach with his boot." Sunday Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) noted that Sadr City residents "blame both" the US-Iraqi fighters and the Mahdi militia and that they do not expect the cease-fire will hold. Leila Fadel noted that residents report the truce did not stop the violence and quotes Suham Bresam explaining, "This agreement happened and I was up all night from the gunshots and strikes." Simon Assaf (Great Britain's Socialist Worker) notes the estimated 800 civilians "feared dead" in the long assault on Sadr City and how many more have been turned into refugees in order to avoid the slaughter. As the assault continues Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports today that Sadr City hospital have received 3 dead and eighteen wounded. AP reports that the cease-fire was signed today and that it is "a four-day cease-fire" as well as that there are doubts as to whether or not it will be followed.
Turning to other reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 Baghdad roadside bombings resulting in three people being injured, Hussein Shaban was killed by a car bombing outside Mosul, an Al Anbar Province roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 children, 2 bodyguards and "Awakening" Council member Abu Qutaiba.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Col Nibras Fadel Abbas of the Ministry of Defense was shot dead in Baghdad today, a Baghdad armed clash resulted in three people being wounded, one person wounded in a Sulaimaniyah Province shooting, and, dropping back to yesterday, a women's shelter in Sulaimaniyah was shot up by unknown persons with one woman being wounded.
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today (PDF format warning) the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division -- Baghdad Soldier was killed after being struck by an improvised explosive device during a route clearance patrol at approximately 9:20 p.m. May 11 in northwest Baghdad. The Soldier was quickly transported to the medical facility where he later died of his wounds." 4076 is currently the number of US service members who have died in Iraq since the start of the illegal war.
Yesterday Tom Vanden Brooks (USA Today) reported on US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sudden chatty nature on stop-loss and how he regrets that it was "my decision to go to 15-month tours" which "made it impossible for them" to reduce the numbers stop-lossed. What's really the point of Chatty Gates? Friday Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times) reported that stop-loss/backdoor draft numbers are increasing again: "number steadily declined through May 2007, when it hit 8,540. But since then, the number of soldiers subjected to stop-loss orders began to increase again, reaching 12,235 in March 2008." Gates is yacking it up because George W. Casey and US Army Secretay Pete Geren testified to the Senate Armed Services Committe (Feb. 26th) and committee chair Carl Levin specifically asked about stop-loss and was told that the number was "a little less than 8,000 today" -- which would be a LIE since the lowest it ever reached was 8,450 and that was in May of 2007 and the number then began it's climg to 12,235 (March 2008 -- a week after their testimony) and that the Army wanted to "move away from" using stop-loss. As Levin continued to ask for answers, Geren stated it might drop to 7,000. It was already well above 8,000 (it didn't leap to 12,235 one week later in a huge bound) and it never got below 8,000 over the previous 12 months. Geren, with Casey beside him nodding along, LIED to Congress. Levin asked specific questions and was LIED to. Now Gates is a on yack-fest to get 'information' out there and to shift the focus to that and not the LIE. Geren LIED. The same way the VA lied to Congress about the number of veterans' suicides.
Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times' Babylon & Beyond) notes: "Government officials had been talking about it for months. But when the offensive finally began Saturday to clear the northern city of Mosul of insurgents, residents were caught off guard." Talking about it? Did someone miss that Barack Obama, April 8th, was praising it in the Senate during The Petraeus & Crocker Variety Hour? Praising it, acting like it had taken place. Turning to US politics. PBS' NewsHour on Friday featured THREE IDIOTS, chief among them Mark Shields who wants to claim to be a "hard working American." Old idiot should have retired a long time ago so it is hilarious to watch him claim that Hillary Clinton needs to exit "gracefully." Shields won't exit period. Mark Sheilds turns 70 this month (May 25th). Exactly when he is going to exit? Exactly when will his tired ass be taken off television or does he really think anyone believes he's from the "left" all these years later or that anyone needs his nonsense? 70 years old and he wants to pretend anyone else needs to exit? Get real, Mark, it's time to go. Step down and allow someone younger -- even ten years younger would be something at this point -- to step up to the plate.
We don't do "Don't Run! and "Drop Out!" pieces in this community (community-wide, it doesn't happen). Someone's campaign may appear over to us and we may note that. We don't then say, "Drop out!" (We didn't with Dennis Kucinich when he demonstrated that he would give votes away in Iowa. That's when his campaign died. Had he stayed in, were he still in today, there would be no "Drop Out Dennis!" piece.) Those pieces -- whether aimed at Ralph Nader, Cindy Sheehan, or whomever -- go against the beliefs in democracy that the US is supposed to have. Someone wants to run, they run. Someone wants to stay in the race, they stay in. It's really basic but it's something that a number of people have trouble grasping and they need to start answering the question: "Do you believe in democracy?" Their actions indicate that they do not.
In terms of the Democratic primaries a few things. Iowa and New Hampshire should not have a lock on who goes first. That's been the position community-wide (and we wrote about it at Third -- over and over -- beginning in 2005). Iowa's caucus is prone to theft and not open (ibid). Caucuses are not used in the general election so they shouldn't be used in any primaries (ibid). Every vote should be counted (ibid). Everyone who wants to run for public office has a right to (ibid). No candiate 'steals' votes from another. Everyone gets the ones they get and if they lose by X% that is their own loss (ibid). Those are the basic beliefs that this community has operated under since it started. In terms of this election cycle, the only thing to add to that is that this site (The Common Ills), Wally and Cedric (at their sites) have all argued for Michigan and Florida's delegates to be seated and done that going back months and months well into 2007 -- long before either state held their primary (and Wally, Cedric and I were making comments that the delegates will need to be seated and the totals honored in roundtables at Third long before that -- Wally lives in Florida, this has always been a primary issue to him). We have not adopted to a position helpful to 'our candidate,' we have stayed consistent with our core democratic beliefs.
Now the DNC has repeatedly lied to states -- presidential election cycle after presidential election cycle -- that there's no harm in the order. It may happen, they've said, that states pushed all the way to the end of the calendar could end up being the deciding factors! It just might be, they've lied, that the final states could decide it! Well now the race continues and shame on anyone in an elected office who tries to call it off or says someone needs to drop out. The campaign's still going (West Virginia's primary is tomorrow, Kentucky & Oregon's on May 20th, Puerto Rico's on June 1st and then Montana & South Dakota on June 3rd.) Every four year, Iowa and New Hampshire get their asses kissed by every candidate and the rest of the states suffer. It's not fair, it's never been fair. It's not right, it's never been right. 2012 should see real changes from the DNC. That should include doing away with caucuses which are not used in a general election, which allow people to 'vote' in 'rounds' and which are useless. That should include immediately implementing a rotating schedule for state primaries so that all states will have a chance at being the first ones (yes, even Alaska).
To cover a few more points, we don't waste our time on faux candidates. Meaning Cynthia McKinney. When idiot Ted Glick stated on Democracy Now! that McKinney (who is not yet the Green Party nominee) knew she couldn't win the presidency and was defining 'victory' by getting 5%, that was idiotic. That was stupid. But he said it. When her campaign turned around and linked to the interview stating he speaks for her, this community was under no obligation to ever again give a damn. And, if she's the nominee, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC should shut her out of the debates because a candidate (who doesn't even have her party's nomination) who states that 'victory' would be 5% of the vote isn't a real candidate. They should shut her out and she has no right to complain if they do. Ralph Nader's not saying, "I'm going for X% of the vote." Nader's running to win. Though you hear over and over that Ralph's running a vanity campaign (you heard that in 2004, 2000, 1996 . . .), he is not (and has not) run a vanity campaign. He's running to win. He may win or he may not win but he's running the best campaign he can and in a race to win it. Nader has a right to be on stage taking part in all debates. I don't know right-wing third parties. If their candidates are running to win (and not announcing "I can't win, I just want a percent of the vote!") then they should be allowed on stage at the debates as well. That's a basic of democracy as surely as count every vote: candidates in a race to win it are real candidates -- not based on polling, not based on fund raising. It's not only that they have a right to be included it's also that in a democracy those 'deciding' have an obligation to include them.
Those are the basics and we'll touch on them throughout the next section. Another basic, how many states are there in the US? Answer: 50. Who said this: "Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states, I think one left to go. One left to go. Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go, even though I really wanted to visit but my staff would not justify it."? It wasn't John McCain, it was Barack Obama. Video here. The NewsHour link earlier will find Barack saying "I said uh on Brian Williams yesterday" . . . Not 'to' Brian Williams. Sorry to break it to Barack but there's no Brian Williams Show to say that on. The program's title remains NBC Nightly News, the same title it's had since Barack was a child going by "Barry." (It was Huntley-Brinkley Report until July 31, 1970.) This comes on top of his absurd claim last week (in his North Carolina victory speech) that the media refused to notice where he was insisting his father (a Kenyan) was buried (in Kenya) with a US flag draping the coffin. (Be sure to check out Isaiah's comic on Barack's blunders.) I'm sure some will rush foward -- the same who chuckled at Barack's slam to John McCain last week, the ageism, no doubt -- to insist Barack's tired. Now I know the Bully Boy's made it look easy by delegating so much of his work to Dick Cheney; however, the president of the United States is supposed to be one of the hardest and most demanding in the country. If Barack's not up for the job, voters need to know that now. He's already required a tropical vacation (Virgin Islands -- March right after he gave the nearly 4,000 word speech) and a day of rest last Wednesday. Barack Obama is young for a presidential candidate (46-years-old) currently. And he's having trouble keeping up with the campaign schedule? And he wants to smear John McCain with little jabs? (Covered in Friday's "Iraq snapshot" and Ava and I note it in "TV: Tiny Tots"). He thinks he can accuse McCain of "losing his bearings" after all of that plus repeatedly calling Matt Lauer "Tim" last week?
Now he's decided to write off campaigning in many states (he can't win them) and his campaign is allegedly calling people in those states and telling them the race is over? That's as phoney as targeting certain areas with fliers stating the wrong date for an election or telling some communities that anyone with an outstanding traffic ticket or warrant will be arrested if they vote. He should be ashamed of his campaign. He should be ashmed of himself for writing off states -- were he to become the nominee, he would need to have used the opportunity to introduce himself to residents of West Virginia. Big Tent Democrat (TalkLeft) notes "that Democratic Presidential candidates carried West Virginia in every recent election except the last 2". Jeralyn (TalkLeft) again stresses the issue of the electoral college map and notes Bringiton (Corrente) results where the idea of sharing delegates is tossed out and the winner takes all system is used (as it is in the general election for all but two states). In that match-up, based on the states that have voted thus far (and tossing Oregon over to Barack before their primary), Hillary comes out the strongest. Bringiton's point is the one that NOW on PBS addressed two Fridays ago when David Brancaccio spoke with Willie Brown and Dan Schnur and it was noted that if the system the Democrats are currently using was used by the GOP, John McCain would still be facing Mike Huckabee; however, under the winner takes all system, Hillary would have been declared the Democratic primary winner long ago. So, to be clear, the GOP will be putting up a nominee (barring any unforseen circumstances) who has played on the winner take all field and the Democrats may very well go with a candidate who's been given delegates that really don't matter even though he lost the states (Schnur compared it to Little League giving every player a trophy). Anglachel (Anglache's Journal) asserts, "I will simply repeat what I've been saying for weeks now: Hillary = nominee= vicotry; Obama = nominee = defeat. Neither candidate has enough pledged delgates to get to 2209 votes without super delegates, so it is up to the SDs to decide the fate of the party in this electoral cycle. The nominee isn't the person with the most at a certain point in time, it is the person who first hits 2209."
Meanwhile John Edwards' supporter John Mashek (US News & World Report) weighs in on John Edwards "playing games with his preference for his party's nomination. Truth be told, it really doesn't matter at this late hour. Edwards holds a meager handful of pledged delegates, and even they can act as free agents at the convention in Denver." What's he talking about is John Edwards was on Face The Nation (CBS) Sunday (link has text and video and, PDF format warning, transcript here). As Edwards noted himself, she doesn't need any advice so why are so many rushing to give it to her? Rushing to tell her to drop out? Fernando Suarez (CBS News) reports that the latest Suffolk University Poll shows Hillary Clinton with a huge double-digit lead in West Virginia -- a 36 point advantage over her opponent Barack Obama. But the most striking figure in the poll is that Clinton is viewed more favorably than Obama". Doesn't sound like a loser. Suarez also notes that "no Democratic candidate has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916." Egalia (Tennessee Guerilla Women) notes Barack's absences from West Virginia and Kentucky and wonders, "If Obama views it as pointless to campaign in the Kentucky and West Virginia primaries, why would he bother showing up in the general?" Good point but it also needs to be noted that this was his Michigan strategy. Idiots keep repeating, "He wasn't on the ballot!" He took his name off. He did so for the same reason he's refusing to campaign in Kentucky and West Virginia right now: He doesn't think he can win. The plan with Michigan, which he knew he couldn't win (and he couldn't, he was right on that) was to take his name off so that he could say of Hillary's victory (she was expected to win and she did), "It doesn't matter, I wasn't on the ballot." Just as his trashy campaign will attempt to argue that Kentucky and West Virginia's votes don't matter "because he didn't campaign!" He took his name off the Michigan ballot after the internal campaign voting showed him losing to Hillary and John Edwards. His own campaign polling showed him coming in third. He took his name off the ballot (as did Edwards) and then used that to suck up to the residents of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Hillary's still in the race because the race is a dead-heat. The cries for her to drop out are coming because Barack's campaign knows it does reject their narrative that he is the choice of Democratic voters when the upcoming primaries take place. Actually, had the media been paying attention, Indiana recently made that argument. He lost, she won. Were he the choice why, in May, would he be losing to her? He's not the choice. It's a tie, neither will reach the necessary number of delegates awarded by states. The decision should be mae on the convention floor unless one of them drops out. Whining about August being so late in the year? Blame the DNC. They were the fools that moved it back. The mistaken belief is that part of John Kerry's losing campaign's failure was in fundraising -- and by being so far ahead (so many weeks) of the GOP convention, the July DNC convention was the reason. He had so many more weeks where he needed to buy advertising! Boo-hoo. But if August is too far away, blame the DNC for pushing the convention so far back this year.
Barring one of them dropping back, the race should go to the convention room floor. Those are the rules. I don't know why so many big babies -- alleged adults -- are afraid of a convention floor fight? The Demcractic Party used to have them all the time. Maybe it's scary when one candidate is vetted and the other isn't? Texas Darlin (TaylorMarsh.com) notes this from Chuck Neubauer and Tom Hamburger (Los Angeles Times) report on Barack's relationship with Chicago business person Robert Blackwell Jr.: "After After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter. Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000. A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin." Darlin notes that "the day after Obama wrote his letter soliciting state funds for Blackwell's company, Obama's U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell." There are things like this throughout Barack's 'career.' Panhandle Media has inflated him and you hear that he was a "community organizer" (he did get-out-the-vote work), a "law professor" (he lectured -- the Chicago university may cover his butt, we won't here, reality is reality, he was a lecturer), a "Civili Rights" or "Civil Liberties" attorney. Don't hold your breath waiting to hear about those cases because they don't exist. Since he hasn't provided any (again, they don't exist), journalists are checking the Chicago docket (and finding nothing). There seems to be some delusion in the Obama campaign that no one will ever ask questions. (They're backed up by the fact that the many in the media still think Bill Ayers-Barack Obama is the connection when, in fact, the connection is to Bernardine Dohrn and all who know Bernardine and Bill -- myself included -- no Bill never does a thing without her say so.) That's what's behind the attempts to push Hillary out of the race. If Barack's get the nomination, the thinking is, the Dems are stuck with him and they'll have to defend him from whatever scandal (I count four brewing in the press and it will be interesting to see which one gets reported first). The thinking is that if they sell this lemon and it's driven off the car lot, it won't matter, people will be stuck with Barack. They'll have to defend for things that they do not approve of. It's a losing strategy and it's a loser for the Democratic Party.
Jennifer Agiesta and Jon Cohen (Washington Post) reported Saturday that, yes, Jeremiah Wright is making a difference in voting with presumably White churchgoers the most vocal while "African American churchgoers were not uniform in their response to the uproar surrounding Wright's controversial views, which the preacher rekindled the week before the primaries. Nearly half of black weekly churchgoers in Indiana said Wright was not at all important to their vote, while in North Carolina, about the same percentage said it was a significant factor. In the Tarheel state, black voters who gave Wright's sermons the most consideration still gave Obama a 70-point advantage, but it was slimmer than his 93-point win among those who said it was not a factor." Issue after issue and the presumed conviction of Antoin "Tony" Rezko all rolls together to make Barack Obama not the image he presented to the American people. And he was never that popular to begin with. He was popular with those following Democratic primaries which doesn't even include all Democrats. What Barack's done is run an impressive -- though not winning -- primary campaign and demonstrated that he's not a general election candidate. The bloom came off the rose when ABC's Good Morning America broadcast the Wright videos, his campaign's been a drag ever since. Not helped by his uh-uh-uh-uh, not helped by the fact that he can't win a debate -- exactly how do his supporters assume they would prod swing-voters to his side after they saw him embarrass himself in repeated debates with John McCain (and hopefully Ralph Nader)? Or is he going to stomp his feet and insist that there be no debates the way he did in the primary season? Hate to break it to the Big Baby and his Devoted Cult, Hillary hasn't hit that hard. If Barack does steal the nomination, it will be a rude awakening for his devoted following when false charges of racism backfire on them, when he's excepted to be competent and know what he's talking about, when he's expected to grasp issues -- those things he always wants to talk about (he says) but never gets around to. His radicals in Panhandle Media can stomp their feet all they want, they can scream and yell all they want, it won't do any good -- and bystanders watching the proceedings from the sides are already sick of the trash the Barack campaign has used. It's like all the pathetic White people of the 'left' defending Jeremiah Wright. There is no excuse for what he said. There's no excuse for it. Carol F. Roye (Women's eNews) notes that "Wright's incedniary comment was unwarranted and destructive. I wish he'd dare to raise an actual HIV-AIDS threat that is being dangerously silence by taboo. It's a threat that the public health community continues to ignore and that we must talk about: women's unprotected anal intercourse with male partners." Wright offered crackpot science and it was justified, excused, defended by Panhandle Media. Grow up. You can trick your small devoted into believeing that for a little while; however, let's be honest, the bulk of you have also tricked your same audiences into believing that you are Democrats.
Jake Tapper (ABC News) notes that Chris Rock, NPR's Ken Rudin and US House Rep Steve Cohen have now all compared Hillary to the Glenn Close character in the backlash trash Fatal Attraction. Tapper notes "as the late great Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker at the time, the 'film is about men seeing feminists as witches'." It's exactly that sort of crap that made people like Ava and myself get off the sidelines. The Obama camp has no one to blame but themselves. They have used sexism over and over and the media has amplified it and provided their own. (And let's remember, Betsy Reed, wanting to talk sister-to-sister to all of us gals cited the 'feminist' Chris Rock in her column. Reed's not a feminist, she's not a Democrat and she needs to stop trying to trick America but people like her having nothing to offer but tricks and deceptions. If forced to be honest -- about anything -- they'd probably suffer a heart attack.) Another who called out Fatal Attraciton, Susan Faludi, noted last week (Friday in the New York Times but link goes to Der Spiegel), "Pundits have been quick to attribute the erosion in Barack Obama's white male support to a newfound racism. What they have failed to consider is the degree to which white male voters witnessing Senator Clinton's metamorphosis are being forced to rethink precepts they've long held about women in politics." That's certainly logical and plausible and would be similar to the shift in the Latino community, the one Cokie Roberts attempted to address the night of Super Duper Tuesday on ABC when she noted that, in the 1980s, Latino voters were among the more resistant to female candidates -- and not only had Hillary won their support but that the change had begun in the 90s for the Latino community. That is two women now who noted it. Hopefully, others in the media will at some point. It's one of the major developments of this campaign season. Another development is that US House Rep Ciro Rodriguez has endorsed Hillary today stating, "The voters of Texas' 23rd congressional district voted overwhelming for Senator Clinton in the Texas primary and I will respect their decision. I believe Hillary Clinton has the experience, vision, and toughness to win a general election and can help expand our Democratic majority in Congress. Not only can she win, I am convinced that she will be a truly great President. In two areas of special importance to me, caring for our veterans and improving our schools, Hillary has been a real leader. I am happy to follow the clear choice of my constituents and support Hillary for President." Which does put pressure on Barack supporters who scream "popular vote! popular vote!" but whose own constituents voted for Hillary. (Yes, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, that would include you.)
Peggy Simpson (Womens Media Center) reports on Barack and Hillary's statements that the Democratic Party will come together in November regardless of the outcome of the nomination process. Trina would disagree. Joel S. Hirschhorn (Information Clearing House) makes the argument for Ralph Nader, assumes Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee and argues: "Peoplw with intelligence and conscience must resist peer pressure and the temptation to vote against John McCain by voting for Barack Obama." Regardless of who gets the nomination -- Hillary or Barack -- some voters (maybe many) will go elsewhere. A Nader supporter grasps that, too bad for the pathetic public faces of the Green Party that they couldn't grasp that very basic fact. This community is pro-Hillary. That's the Green members, the independents, the third partied and the Democrats. Democratic community members are supporting her with their votes but community-wide she had support in terms of the primary race. That didn't prevent Green 'faces' from smearing her throughout the primary. Teddy Glick, I-Need-Attention Benjamin and all the others. Between that and the nonsense of McKinney's I'm-Running-For-5%-of-The Vote, Ralph Nader sewed up the community. He is the choice of Greens and most independents and has become the back-up choice for all the rest should Hillary not get the nomination. (For those visitors who have continued to whine in e-mails -- I didn't vote in the poll, I do not disclose my vote. And I honestly don't give a damn what any of you cry babies have to say. The community made up its mind, you aren't part of it, whine elsewhere.) "Call it the no more whinging campaing," says Team Nader:
Don't tell us about Bush/Cheney. We know already. The sewage has risen to the surface. The question is -- what are we going to do about it? The answer is -- Nader - [Matt] Gonzalez. [. . .] We put our people vs. the corporations platform on the table. And -- per your request -- we've just updated our issues pages with more detail. We're working hard to get Nader/Gonzalez on as many state ballots as possible. And -- per your request -- we've just launched a clickable state by state map of the country for ballot access.
the common ills
like maria said paz
kats korner
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
trinas kitchen
the daily jot
cedrics big mix
mikey likes it
thomas friedman is a great man
ruths report
sickofitradlz
the third estate sunday review
iraq
camilo mejia
susan faludi
pbs
now with david branccacio
jake tapper
peggy simpson
fernando suarez
rosalin ryanrobert winnett
leila fadelmcclatchy newspapers
the new york timesalissa j. rubinhala jaber
the socialist worker
tom vanden brooksimon assafjulian e. barnes
alexandra zavisthe los angeles times
the daily jotcedrics big mix
trinas kitchen
the third estate sunday review
The unelectable Barack! The idiot candidate. The one who people have to 'see' into because he has nothing to point to. So they have to convince themselves he feels like they do, he is like them. Wonder how many baby boomers caught his attack on them today? Wonder how many caught that and still want to pretend he speaks for them? Not many, I'd guess.
Probably wish they could change their votes. They can't but there are people who have been waiting to vote in their primaries. And yet the media keeps saying, "Hillary needs to drop out!" It's a tie. There's no reason for her to drop out and it's insulting not only to her, it's insulting to those who have waited all this time to vote. I magine if you're in Kentucky, for instance. You've been following this and waiting for your turn to vote, excited that finally Kentucky gets be a decider! And it's only a few more weeks, but you've got idiots trying to deny Kentucky their shot. That is so insulting.
Here's "HUBdate: Getting Out the Vote in West Virginia" about a real candidate, one who is fighting:
Today In West Virginia: Hillary hosts a "Solutions for the American Economy" Town Hall in Clear Fork, a "Solutions For America" rally in Logan, and an "Old-Fashioned Political Rally" with Governor Joe Manchin in Fairmont.
Mother’s Day In Grafton, WV: "Sunday was Mother's Day, but U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did not take the day off. Instead, she was campaigning here at the birthplace of the holiday. Clinton, along with her daughter Chelsea, toured the home of Mother's Day founder Anna Jarvis early in the afternoon. The two Clintons stopped briefly to wave to onlookers who had braved the rain to line the road in order to catch a glimpse of the presidential candidate. 'Happy Mother's Day,' Clinton shouted to the spectators." Read more.
In Case You Missed It: Read and listen to Hillary's Mother's Day remarks here.
Sunday Show Appearances: On CBS' Face the Nation yesterday, Campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe said, “We still have seven million Democrats yet to vote. We have West Virginia this Tuesday...We're up in Kentucky. We're up in Puerto Rico."…Communications Director Howard Wolfson told Fox News Sunday: "We as a party have to be able to compete in places like West Virginia and Kentucky."
Donating To Hillary: Dalton Hatfield, an 11-year-old boy from WV, "presented former President Bill Clinton with a check for $440 after Friday’s rally at the Williamson Fire Station...Hatfield feels so strongly that Hillary Clinton should be the next president he not only sold his bicycle, but video games and anything else he could find that 'I could make money with’ to donate to the former first lady's bid for the Democratic nomination." Read more.
On Tap: Hillary will spend election night on Tuesday in Charleston, WV.
There's only one candidate who stands up for the people in the Democratic race. It's not Barack Obama. It's Hillary Clinton. She's working her butt off right now and he's coasting. If he can't even work for the nomination, what makes you think he'd work if he got it. (Work if he got the White House? If he gets the nomination the Democrats do not get into the White House.)
Okay, let's talk Third. Along with Dallas, the following helped on Sunday's edition:
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
and Marcia SICKOFITRDLZ.
And here's what we came up with.
Biggest crap of the week -- Donna Brazile. Actually what she said, but she's a big piece of crap too.
A note to our readers -- Jim breaks down the edition and notes most of us had Mother's Day stuff to do so we broke early to get sleep and then do that and got back together later in the day. Jim's right we really could have posted if we'd stayed up thirty minutes more. He forgot to tell you which was the last piece (I think he did).
Editorial: Bye-bye Cynthia McKinney -- A presidential campaign is a campaign where a candidate runs for the presidency. Running for 5% of the vote is not running for the presidency. Cynthia McKinney does not think she will win and thinks 'victory' is 5% of the vote. Ted Glick said that on Democracy Now, McKinney's campaign site linked to it and said he speaks for her. None of us have time for campaigns that are not real ones. Especially C.I. who does all the heavy lifting in the community. There's no longer any reason to include McKinney in the snapshots or in coverage elsewhere. She is not a real candidate.
TV: Tiny Tots -- I really love this. They're talking about a number of things and weaving it all together and making you laugh. And "they" is, of course, Ava and C.I. This really covers a huge terrain.
Barack's message to veterans "Get lost" -- This, the editorial and another piece were three that were held by Jim (three topics C.I. planned to cover last week at The Common Ills). We did this one and I think it turned out really well. We working so quick and were really tired because we were rushing. If it weren't for the TV thing (Jim read it out loud to us after Ava and C.I. finished it), we probably wouldn't have had the energy for this. It also features little cards -- actually most of the features below feature them. That was an idea C.I. and Wally came up with via Laugh In.
Roundtable -- We even did a roundtable! We did this first. This went really quick. I don't know how. Maybe because of Jim? But it went really quick and we're covering a number of topics.
The 527 of the Democratic Party (it's Green) -- This is about Green Party 'members' who write articles that praise Barack and slam Hillary. Funny, I thought the Green Party was it's own political party but apparently it's just an arm of the Democratic Party. I thought they had candidates in almost all the states. But all they can do is make time to slam Hillary. Maybe they think they're Democrats? Maybe they think that because they really are? Ted Glick, Medea Benjamin and many more claim to be Green's but they've got their big noses in the Democratic primary? Maybe the Green Party is so dull that their public leaders can't be bothered with it?
Remember Otto? The Nation appears to forget -- This is a great feature and, yes, it can be carried up to present day. And maybe it should?
Yes, they really are that stupid -- This was the last thing we wrote. We came back from the break and wrote this. Since it really wasn't planned, we could have just posted what we had earlier in the morning.
Happy Mothers Day -- But if we'd done that, we wouldn't have been able to add Hillary's Sunday HUBdate.
Highlights -- Kat, Betty, Ruth, Rebecca, Marcia, Wally, Cedric, Elaine and I wrote this.
"No division, no worries for real feminism" went up Saturday and it's C.I.'s entry. I typed it so blame all typos on me. What happened was C.I. does the entries early Saturday morning (right after we get back from our morning run at 4:00 a.m.). Then C.I., Ava and Kat catch their plane back to California. And I post them later in the day when the last community site has posted (because C.I. includes "The following community sites have updated since Friday morning . . ." to give us all a link). So Betty had problems with her chapter and redid it completely (and had stuff to do so it was going to go up late -- "Cathy's Turn To Blubber"). I called C.I. as soon as the plane landed and explained. C.I. said it made no sense to post the things from the morning now and "I'll do new entries when I get to the house." I felt bad. (I really should have posted them and just added a note about Betty.) I said, "How about you dictate an entry and I'll type it up?" C.I. said no repeatedly and told me it was nice but not to worry about it. Finally, C.I. said, "Mike, I just got off the plane, we're about to get in a taxi, I haven't seen any news since this morning. If I were home, I'd probably be going through the e-mails." I go, "I will now." And I was in there and C.I. was still telling me not to worry about it when I saw Courtney's e-mail with the heads up. I go, "Listen to Courtney's e-mail." She was pissed off by an AP story. So C.I. goes, "Are you sure?" I was and C.I. started dictating and went slowly for me (but even so I missed some stuff, sorry -- along with typos). I asked about links and C.I. said to forget them and tags too. So that went up and when C.I. got back to the house the second entry was done. But read that entry, even with my bad typing (and missing stuff), it really is amazing.
Monday, May 12, 2008. Chaos and violence continues, a 'truce' in Sadr City, bombings in northern Iraq, the US presidential race and more.
Starting with war resistance, Iraq Veterans Against the War chair Camilo Mejia, author of Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, is the first Iraq War veteran to publicly resist the illegal war. Cindy Von Quednow (The Daily Sundial) reports, "An an immigrant, Mejia has strong opinions about the notion that Latinos are targeted by recruiters to join the armed forces. '(Recruiters) use the lack of benefits of Latinos and immigrants to lure people in,' he said. 'The biggest problem is that they don't give all the information, they only give the pretty information, which is not the true picture.' According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Latinos made up 13 percent of the enlisted military personnel in 2006, compared to 18 percent of the civilian population, and there is an effort to increase those numbers to 22 percent. As reported in The New York Times, the Pentagon started an advertising campaign through the Spanish-language media to exclusively appeal to Latinos. 'It you look at documents released by the Pentagon and the federal government, they have deliberate attempt to recruit and socialize young Chicanos and Latinos for the military,' said Rosa Furumoto, assistant professor of Chicano/a Studies at CSUN."
While young Latinos are under attack in the US, in Canada, war resisters are hoping the Parliament will take action on a motion waiting to be debated. Currently, you can utilize the following e-mails to show your support: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. In addition Jack Layton, NDP leader, has a contact form and they would like to hear from people as well. A few more addresses can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Jamie Leigh Jones was a contractor for Halliburton's KBR, sent to Iraq, gang-raped by her co-workers and held in a pod. Maddy Sauer (ABC News) reports that Jones case will go to court despite Halliburton's absurd claim that arbitration can be used and that District Judge Keith Ellison "wrote in his order Friday that Jones' claims of sexaul assault, battery, rape, false imprisonment and others fall beyond the scope of her cemployment." Previous ABC News coverage of Jones can be found here and here. Sonia Verman (Times of London) reports, "The decision has opened the door for other American women who have reported sexual assaults in similar circumstances to challenge clauses in their employment contracts restricting such claims to private arbitration and keeping them out of court. It comes at a time when the US Congress is examing whether the Government is adequately protecting contractors who allege sexual assault." Meanwhile Emma Schwartz (US News & World Reports) notes that Alaa ("Alex") Mohammad Ali ("Iraqi-born Canadian) will be "the first civilian contractor in Iraq" to be court-martialed "under the military justice system". The Orillia Packet & Times notes, he "is accused of stabbing another contractor four times during a fight in February on a base west of Baghdad" and that this is "the first such military prosecution since the Vietnam War."
Meanwhile a book in England, or at least a section of it (excerpt here at the Times of London), has caught the attention of many including Rosalin Ryan (Guardian of London), Robert Winnett (Telegraph of London) and The Hindu Times. The book, by attorney Cherie Booth Blair, includes a section detailing her 2002 miscarriage and how her husband, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, 'handled' it. Despite phoning that he'd be there "straight away," Booth Blair writes, Tony instead ran off to inform Alastair and the two men phoned her to tell her that the Blairs' announced vacation presented a problem because with the Iraq War impending, if the vacation were cancelled (as it would need to be) with no explanation, people might assume it had something to do with the upcoming war. Booth Blair was informed that her miscarriage needed to be announced to the media immediately. Booth Blair writes: "They had decided that the best thing was to tell the press that I'd had a miscarriage. I couldn't believe it. There I was, bleeding, and they were talking about what was going to be the line to the press. I put down the receiver and lay there staring at the ceiling, as pain began to grip."
In Iraq, tensions between northern Iraq and Turkey continue. Hurriyet reports: "Turkish jets bombed on Sunday the Nerwa and Rekan areas in northern Iraq, the website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) reported. Turkish jets also bombed mountainous areas in the Zakho district of Duhok province earlier on Sunday, PUK media reported, adding Turkish artillery sporadically shelled the same areas." Reuters quotes Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga security forces spokesperson Jabbar Yawar stating that the bombings resulted in no deaths or wounded. Suzan Fraser (AP) reminds, "Turkey has launched several cross-border aerial attacks this year to stamp out PKK bases in northern Iraq. The military also sent ground troops into Iraq in February for an eight-day cross-border incursion in pursuit of the rebels."
Further into Iraq, Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reported over the weekend, "Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. In return, Sadr's Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government's agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of 'medium and heavy weaponry'." The immediate impact? Hala Jaber (Times of London) reported: "A humvee military vehicle idles on a broad avenue as an Iraqi army soldier walks nonchalantly past without so much as a glance at the body slung across the bonnet.The dead man's trousers have been pulled down to his ankles, exposing white underwear below a torn T-shirt drenched in blood from wounds to his chest and side. Behind is a second Humvee with another body sprawled over the front, arms and legs outstretched. On his white shirt, a large bloodstain indicates the wound that may have killed him. A soldier sitting on the roof dangles his legs over the windscreen and seems to prod the corpse's stomach with his boot." Sunday Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) noted that Sadr City residents "blame both" the US-Iraqi fighters and the Mahdi militia and that they do not expect the cease-fire will hold. Leila Fadel noted that residents report the truce did not stop the violence and quotes Suham Bresam explaining, "This agreement happened and I was up all night from the gunshots and strikes." Simon Assaf (Great Britain's Socialist Worker) notes the estimated 800 civilians "feared dead" in the long assault on Sadr City and how many more have been turned into refugees in order to avoid the slaughter. As the assault continues Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports today that Sadr City hospital have received 3 dead and eighteen wounded. AP reports that the cease-fire was signed today and that it is "a four-day cease-fire" as well as that there are doubts as to whether or not it will be followed.
Turning to other reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 Baghdad roadside bombings resulting in three people being injured, Hussein Shaban was killed by a car bombing outside Mosul, an Al Anbar Province roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 children, 2 bodyguards and "Awakening" Council member Abu Qutaiba.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Col Nibras Fadel Abbas of the Ministry of Defense was shot dead in Baghdad today, a Baghdad armed clash resulted in three people being wounded, one person wounded in a Sulaimaniyah Province shooting, and, dropping back to yesterday, a women's shelter in Sulaimaniyah was shot up by unknown persons with one woman being wounded.
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today (PDF format warning) the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division -- Baghdad Soldier was killed after being struck by an improvised explosive device during a route clearance patrol at approximately 9:20 p.m. May 11 in northwest Baghdad. The Soldier was quickly transported to the medical facility where he later died of his wounds." 4076 is currently the number of US service members who have died in Iraq since the start of the illegal war.
Yesterday Tom Vanden Brooks (USA Today) reported on US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sudden chatty nature on stop-loss and how he regrets that it was "my decision to go to 15-month tours" which "made it impossible for them" to reduce the numbers stop-lossed. What's really the point of Chatty Gates? Friday Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times) reported that stop-loss/backdoor draft numbers are increasing again: "number steadily declined through May 2007, when it hit 8,540. But since then, the number of soldiers subjected to stop-loss orders began to increase again, reaching 12,235 in March 2008." Gates is yacking it up because George W. Casey and US Army Secretay Pete Geren testified to the Senate Armed Services Committe (Feb. 26th) and committee chair Carl Levin specifically asked about stop-loss and was told that the number was "a little less than 8,000 today" -- which would be a LIE since the lowest it ever reached was 8,450 and that was in May of 2007 and the number then began it's climg to 12,235 (March 2008 -- a week after their testimony) and that the Army wanted to "move away from" using stop-loss. As Levin continued to ask for answers, Geren stated it might drop to 7,000. It was already well above 8,000 (it didn't leap to 12,235 one week later in a huge bound) and it never got below 8,000 over the previous 12 months. Geren, with Casey beside him nodding along, LIED to Congress. Levin asked specific questions and was LIED to. Now Gates is a on yack-fest to get 'information' out there and to shift the focus to that and not the LIE. Geren LIED. The same way the VA lied to Congress about the number of veterans' suicides.
Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times' Babylon & Beyond) notes: "Government officials had been talking about it for months. But when the offensive finally began Saturday to clear the northern city of Mosul of insurgents, residents were caught off guard." Talking about it? Did someone miss that Barack Obama, April 8th, was praising it in the Senate during The Petraeus & Crocker Variety Hour? Praising it, acting like it had taken place. Turning to US politics. PBS' NewsHour on Friday featured THREE IDIOTS, chief among them Mark Shields who wants to claim to be a "hard working American." Old idiot should have retired a long time ago so it is hilarious to watch him claim that Hillary Clinton needs to exit "gracefully." Shields won't exit period. Mark Sheilds turns 70 this month (May 25th). Exactly when he is going to exit? Exactly when will his tired ass be taken off television or does he really think anyone believes he's from the "left" all these years later or that anyone needs his nonsense? 70 years old and he wants to pretend anyone else needs to exit? Get real, Mark, it's time to go. Step down and allow someone younger -- even ten years younger would be something at this point -- to step up to the plate.
We don't do "Don't Run! and "Drop Out!" pieces in this community (community-wide, it doesn't happen). Someone's campaign may appear over to us and we may note that. We don't then say, "Drop out!" (We didn't with Dennis Kucinich when he demonstrated that he would give votes away in Iowa. That's when his campaign died. Had he stayed in, were he still in today, there would be no "Drop Out Dennis!" piece.) Those pieces -- whether aimed at Ralph Nader, Cindy Sheehan, or whomever -- go against the beliefs in democracy that the US is supposed to have. Someone wants to run, they run. Someone wants to stay in the race, they stay in. It's really basic but it's something that a number of people have trouble grasping and they need to start answering the question: "Do you believe in democracy?" Their actions indicate that they do not.
In terms of the Democratic primaries a few things. Iowa and New Hampshire should not have a lock on who goes first. That's been the position community-wide (and we wrote about it at Third -- over and over -- beginning in 2005). Iowa's caucus is prone to theft and not open (ibid). Caucuses are not used in the general election so they shouldn't be used in any primaries (ibid). Every vote should be counted (ibid). Everyone who wants to run for public office has a right to (ibid). No candiate 'steals' votes from another. Everyone gets the ones they get and if they lose by X% that is their own loss (ibid). Those are the basic beliefs that this community has operated under since it started. In terms of this election cycle, the only thing to add to that is that this site (The Common Ills), Wally and Cedric (at their sites) have all argued for Michigan and Florida's delegates to be seated and done that going back months and months well into 2007 -- long before either state held their primary (and Wally, Cedric and I were making comments that the delegates will need to be seated and the totals honored in roundtables at Third long before that -- Wally lives in Florida, this has always been a primary issue to him). We have not adopted to a position helpful to 'our candidate,' we have stayed consistent with our core democratic beliefs.
Now the DNC has repeatedly lied to states -- presidential election cycle after presidential election cycle -- that there's no harm in the order. It may happen, they've said, that states pushed all the way to the end of the calendar could end up being the deciding factors! It just might be, they've lied, that the final states could decide it! Well now the race continues and shame on anyone in an elected office who tries to call it off or says someone needs to drop out. The campaign's still going (West Virginia's primary is tomorrow, Kentucky & Oregon's on May 20th, Puerto Rico's on June 1st and then Montana & South Dakota on June 3rd.) Every four year, Iowa and New Hampshire get their asses kissed by every candidate and the rest of the states suffer. It's not fair, it's never been fair. It's not right, it's never been right. 2012 should see real changes from the DNC. That should include doing away with caucuses which are not used in a general election, which allow people to 'vote' in 'rounds' and which are useless. That should include immediately implementing a rotating schedule for state primaries so that all states will have a chance at being the first ones (yes, even Alaska).
To cover a few more points, we don't waste our time on faux candidates. Meaning Cynthia McKinney. When idiot Ted Glick stated on Democracy Now! that McKinney (who is not yet the Green Party nominee) knew she couldn't win the presidency and was defining 'victory' by getting 5%, that was idiotic. That was stupid. But he said it. When her campaign turned around and linked to the interview stating he speaks for her, this community was under no obligation to ever again give a damn. And, if she's the nominee, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC should shut her out of the debates because a candidate (who doesn't even have her party's nomination) who states that 'victory' would be 5% of the vote isn't a real candidate. They should shut her out and she has no right to complain if they do. Ralph Nader's not saying, "I'm going for X% of the vote." Nader's running to win. Though you hear over and over that Ralph's running a vanity campaign (you heard that in 2004, 2000, 1996 . . .), he is not (and has not) run a vanity campaign. He's running to win. He may win or he may not win but he's running the best campaign he can and in a race to win it. Nader has a right to be on stage taking part in all debates. I don't know right-wing third parties. If their candidates are running to win (and not announcing "I can't win, I just want a percent of the vote!") then they should be allowed on stage at the debates as well. That's a basic of democracy as surely as count every vote: candidates in a race to win it are real candidates -- not based on polling, not based on fund raising. It's not only that they have a right to be included it's also that in a democracy those 'deciding' have an obligation to include them.
Those are the basics and we'll touch on them throughout the next section. Another basic, how many states are there in the US? Answer: 50. Who said this: "Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states, I think one left to go. One left to go. Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go, even though I really wanted to visit but my staff would not justify it."? It wasn't John McCain, it was Barack Obama. Video here. The NewsHour link earlier will find Barack saying "I said uh on Brian Williams yesterday" . . . Not 'to' Brian Williams. Sorry to break it to Barack but there's no Brian Williams Show to say that on. The program's title remains NBC Nightly News, the same title it's had since Barack was a child going by "Barry." (It was Huntley-Brinkley Report until July 31, 1970.) This comes on top of his absurd claim last week (in his North Carolina victory speech) that the media refused to notice where he was insisting his father (a Kenyan) was buried (in Kenya) with a US flag draping the coffin. (Be sure to check out Isaiah's comic on Barack's blunders.) I'm sure some will rush foward -- the same who chuckled at Barack's slam to John McCain last week, the ageism, no doubt -- to insist Barack's tired. Now I know the Bully Boy's made it look easy by delegating so much of his work to Dick Cheney; however, the president of the United States is supposed to be one of the hardest and most demanding in the country. If Barack's not up for the job, voters need to know that now. He's already required a tropical vacation (Virgin Islands -- March right after he gave the nearly 4,000 word speech) and a day of rest last Wednesday. Barack Obama is young for a presidential candidate (46-years-old) currently. And he's having trouble keeping up with the campaign schedule? And he wants to smear John McCain with little jabs? (Covered in Friday's "Iraq snapshot" and Ava and I note it in "TV: Tiny Tots"). He thinks he can accuse McCain of "losing his bearings" after all of that plus repeatedly calling Matt Lauer "Tim" last week?
Now he's decided to write off campaigning in many states (he can't win them) and his campaign is allegedly calling people in those states and telling them the race is over? That's as phoney as targeting certain areas with fliers stating the wrong date for an election or telling some communities that anyone with an outstanding traffic ticket or warrant will be arrested if they vote. He should be ashamed of his campaign. He should be ashmed of himself for writing off states -- were he to become the nominee, he would need to have used the opportunity to introduce himself to residents of West Virginia. Big Tent Democrat (TalkLeft) notes "that Democratic Presidential candidates carried West Virginia in every recent election except the last 2". Jeralyn (TalkLeft) again stresses the issue of the electoral college map and notes Bringiton (Corrente) results where the idea of sharing delegates is tossed out and the winner takes all system is used (as it is in the general election for all but two states). In that match-up, based on the states that have voted thus far (and tossing Oregon over to Barack before their primary), Hillary comes out the strongest. Bringiton's point is the one that NOW on PBS addressed two Fridays ago when David Brancaccio spoke with Willie Brown and Dan Schnur and it was noted that if the system the Democrats are currently using was used by the GOP, John McCain would still be facing Mike Huckabee; however, under the winner takes all system, Hillary would have been declared the Democratic primary winner long ago. So, to be clear, the GOP will be putting up a nominee (barring any unforseen circumstances) who has played on the winner take all field and the Democrats may very well go with a candidate who's been given delegates that really don't matter even though he lost the states (Schnur compared it to Little League giving every player a trophy). Anglachel (Anglache's Journal) asserts, "I will simply repeat what I've been saying for weeks now: Hillary = nominee= vicotry; Obama = nominee = defeat. Neither candidate has enough pledged delgates to get to 2209 votes without super delegates, so it is up to the SDs to decide the fate of the party in this electoral cycle. The nominee isn't the person with the most at a certain point in time, it is the person who first hits 2209."
Meanwhile John Edwards' supporter John Mashek (US News & World Report) weighs in on John Edwards "playing games with his preference for his party's nomination. Truth be told, it really doesn't matter at this late hour. Edwards holds a meager handful of pledged delegates, and even they can act as free agents at the convention in Denver." What's he talking about is John Edwards was on Face The Nation (CBS) Sunday (link has text and video and, PDF format warning, transcript here). As Edwards noted himself, she doesn't need any advice so why are so many rushing to give it to her? Rushing to tell her to drop out? Fernando Suarez (CBS News) reports that the latest Suffolk University Poll shows Hillary Clinton with a huge double-digit lead in West Virginia -- a 36 point advantage over her opponent Barack Obama. But the most striking figure in the poll is that Clinton is viewed more favorably than Obama". Doesn't sound like a loser. Suarez also notes that "no Democratic candidate has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916." Egalia (Tennessee Guerilla Women) notes Barack's absences from West Virginia and Kentucky and wonders, "If Obama views it as pointless to campaign in the Kentucky and West Virginia primaries, why would he bother showing up in the general?" Good point but it also needs to be noted that this was his Michigan strategy. Idiots keep repeating, "He wasn't on the ballot!" He took his name off. He did so for the same reason he's refusing to campaign in Kentucky and West Virginia right now: He doesn't think he can win. The plan with Michigan, which he knew he couldn't win (and he couldn't, he was right on that) was to take his name off so that he could say of Hillary's victory (she was expected to win and she did), "It doesn't matter, I wasn't on the ballot." Just as his trashy campaign will attempt to argue that Kentucky and West Virginia's votes don't matter "because he didn't campaign!" He took his name off the Michigan ballot after the internal campaign voting showed him losing to Hillary and John Edwards. His own campaign polling showed him coming in third. He took his name off the ballot (as did Edwards) and then used that to suck up to the residents of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Hillary's still in the race because the race is a dead-heat. The cries for her to drop out are coming because Barack's campaign knows it does reject their narrative that he is the choice of Democratic voters when the upcoming primaries take place. Actually, had the media been paying attention, Indiana recently made that argument. He lost, she won. Were he the choice why, in May, would he be losing to her? He's not the choice. It's a tie, neither will reach the necessary number of delegates awarded by states. The decision should be mae on the convention floor unless one of them drops out. Whining about August being so late in the year? Blame the DNC. They were the fools that moved it back. The mistaken belief is that part of John Kerry's losing campaign's failure was in fundraising -- and by being so far ahead (so many weeks) of the GOP convention, the July DNC convention was the reason. He had so many more weeks where he needed to buy advertising! Boo-hoo. But if August is too far away, blame the DNC for pushing the convention so far back this year.
Barring one of them dropping back, the race should go to the convention room floor. Those are the rules. I don't know why so many big babies -- alleged adults -- are afraid of a convention floor fight? The Demcractic Party used to have them all the time. Maybe it's scary when one candidate is vetted and the other isn't? Texas Darlin (TaylorMarsh.com) notes this from Chuck Neubauer and Tom Hamburger (Los Angeles Times) report on Barack's relationship with Chicago business person Robert Blackwell Jr.: "After After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter. Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000. A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin." Darlin notes that "the day after Obama wrote his letter soliciting state funds for Blackwell's company, Obama's U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell." There are things like this throughout Barack's 'career.' Panhandle Media has inflated him and you hear that he was a "community organizer" (he did get-out-the-vote work), a "law professor" (he lectured -- the Chicago university may cover his butt, we won't here, reality is reality, he was a lecturer), a "Civili Rights" or "Civil Liberties" attorney. Don't hold your breath waiting to hear about those cases because they don't exist. Since he hasn't provided any (again, they don't exist), journalists are checking the Chicago docket (and finding nothing). There seems to be some delusion in the Obama campaign that no one will ever ask questions. (They're backed up by the fact that the many in the media still think Bill Ayers-Barack Obama is the connection when, in fact, the connection is to Bernardine Dohrn and all who know Bernardine and Bill -- myself included -- no Bill never does a thing without her say so.) That's what's behind the attempts to push Hillary out of the race. If Barack's get the nomination, the thinking is, the Dems are stuck with him and they'll have to defend him from whatever scandal (I count four brewing in the press and it will be interesting to see which one gets reported first). The thinking is that if they sell this lemon and it's driven off the car lot, it won't matter, people will be stuck with Barack. They'll have to defend for things that they do not approve of. It's a losing strategy and it's a loser for the Democratic Party.
Jennifer Agiesta and Jon Cohen (Washington Post) reported Saturday that, yes, Jeremiah Wright is making a difference in voting with presumably White churchgoers the most vocal while "African American churchgoers were not uniform in their response to the uproar surrounding Wright's controversial views, which the preacher rekindled the week before the primaries. Nearly half of black weekly churchgoers in Indiana said Wright was not at all important to their vote, while in North Carolina, about the same percentage said it was a significant factor. In the Tarheel state, black voters who gave Wright's sermons the most consideration still gave Obama a 70-point advantage, but it was slimmer than his 93-point win among those who said it was not a factor." Issue after issue and the presumed conviction of Antoin "Tony" Rezko all rolls together to make Barack Obama not the image he presented to the American people. And he was never that popular to begin with. He was popular with those following Democratic primaries which doesn't even include all Democrats. What Barack's done is run an impressive -- though not winning -- primary campaign and demonstrated that he's not a general election candidate. The bloom came off the rose when ABC's Good Morning America broadcast the Wright videos, his campaign's been a drag ever since. Not helped by his uh-uh-uh-uh, not helped by the fact that he can't win a debate -- exactly how do his supporters assume they would prod swing-voters to his side after they saw him embarrass himself in repeated debates with John McCain (and hopefully Ralph Nader)? Or is he going to stomp his feet and insist that there be no debates the way he did in the primary season? Hate to break it to the Big Baby and his Devoted Cult, Hillary hasn't hit that hard. If Barack does steal the nomination, it will be a rude awakening for his devoted following when false charges of racism backfire on them, when he's excepted to be competent and know what he's talking about, when he's expected to grasp issues -- those things he always wants to talk about (he says) but never gets around to. His radicals in Panhandle Media can stomp their feet all they want, they can scream and yell all they want, it won't do any good -- and bystanders watching the proceedings from the sides are already sick of the trash the Barack campaign has used. It's like all the pathetic White people of the 'left' defending Jeremiah Wright. There is no excuse for what he said. There's no excuse for it. Carol F. Roye (Women's eNews) notes that "Wright's incedniary comment was unwarranted and destructive. I wish he'd dare to raise an actual HIV-AIDS threat that is being dangerously silence by taboo. It's a threat that the public health community continues to ignore and that we must talk about: women's unprotected anal intercourse with male partners." Wright offered crackpot science and it was justified, excused, defended by Panhandle Media. Grow up. You can trick your small devoted into believeing that for a little while; however, let's be honest, the bulk of you have also tricked your same audiences into believing that you are Democrats.
Jake Tapper (ABC News) notes that Chris Rock, NPR's Ken Rudin and US House Rep Steve Cohen have now all compared Hillary to the Glenn Close character in the backlash trash Fatal Attraction. Tapper notes "as the late great Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker at the time, the 'film is about men seeing feminists as witches'." It's exactly that sort of crap that made people like Ava and myself get off the sidelines. The Obama camp has no one to blame but themselves. They have used sexism over and over and the media has amplified it and provided their own. (And let's remember, Betsy Reed, wanting to talk sister-to-sister to all of us gals cited the 'feminist' Chris Rock in her column. Reed's not a feminist, she's not a Democrat and she needs to stop trying to trick America but people like her having nothing to offer but tricks and deceptions. If forced to be honest -- about anything -- they'd probably suffer a heart attack.) Another who called out Fatal Attraciton, Susan Faludi, noted last week (Friday in the New York Times but link goes to Der Spiegel), "Pundits have been quick to attribute the erosion in Barack Obama's white male support to a newfound racism. What they have failed to consider is the degree to which white male voters witnessing Senator Clinton's metamorphosis are being forced to rethink precepts they've long held about women in politics." That's certainly logical and plausible and would be similar to the shift in the Latino community, the one Cokie Roberts attempted to address the night of Super Duper Tuesday on ABC when she noted that, in the 1980s, Latino voters were among the more resistant to female candidates -- and not only had Hillary won their support but that the change had begun in the 90s for the Latino community. That is two women now who noted it. Hopefully, others in the media will at some point. It's one of the major developments of this campaign season. Another development is that US House Rep Ciro Rodriguez has endorsed Hillary today stating, "The voters of Texas' 23rd congressional district voted overwhelming for Senator Clinton in the Texas primary and I will respect their decision. I believe Hillary Clinton has the experience, vision, and toughness to win a general election and can help expand our Democratic majority in Congress. Not only can she win, I am convinced that she will be a truly great President. In two areas of special importance to me, caring for our veterans and improving our schools, Hillary has been a real leader. I am happy to follow the clear choice of my constituents and support Hillary for President." Which does put pressure on Barack supporters who scream "popular vote! popular vote!" but whose own constituents voted for Hillary. (Yes, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, that would include you.)
Peggy Simpson (Womens Media Center) reports on Barack and Hillary's statements that the Democratic Party will come together in November regardless of the outcome of the nomination process. Trina would disagree. Joel S. Hirschhorn (Information Clearing House) makes the argument for Ralph Nader, assumes Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee and argues: "Peoplw with intelligence and conscience must resist peer pressure and the temptation to vote against John McCain by voting for Barack Obama." Regardless of who gets the nomination -- Hillary or Barack -- some voters (maybe many) will go elsewhere. A Nader supporter grasps that, too bad for the pathetic public faces of the Green Party that they couldn't grasp that very basic fact. This community is pro-Hillary. That's the Green members, the independents, the third partied and the Democrats. Democratic community members are supporting her with their votes but community-wide she had support in terms of the primary race. That didn't prevent Green 'faces' from smearing her throughout the primary. Teddy Glick, I-Need-Attention Benjamin and all the others. Between that and the nonsense of McKinney's I'm-Running-For-5%-of-The Vote, Ralph Nader sewed up the community. He is the choice of Greens and most independents and has become the back-up choice for all the rest should Hillary not get the nomination. (For those visitors who have continued to whine in e-mails -- I didn't vote in the poll, I do not disclose my vote. And I honestly don't give a damn what any of you cry babies have to say. The community made up its mind, you aren't part of it, whine elsewhere.) "Call it the no more whinging campaing," says Team Nader:
Don't tell us about Bush/Cheney. We know already. The sewage has risen to the surface. The question is -- what are we going to do about it? The answer is -- Nader - [Matt] Gonzalez. [. . .] We put our people vs. the corporations platform on the table. And -- per your request -- we've just updated our issues pages with more detail. We're working hard to get Nader/Gonzalez on as many state ballots as possible. And -- per your request -- we've just launched a clickable state by state map of the country for ballot access.
the common ills
like maria said paz
kats korner
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
trinas kitchen
the daily jot
cedrics big mix
mikey likes it
thomas friedman is a great man
ruths report
sickofitradlz
the third estate sunday review
iraq
camilo mejia
susan faludi
pbs
now with david branccacio
jake tapper
peggy simpson
fernando suarez
rosalin ryanrobert winnett
leila fadelmcclatchy newspapers
the new york timesalissa j. rubinhala jaber
the socialist worker
tom vanden brooksimon assafjulian e. barnes
alexandra zavisthe los angeles times
the daily jotcedrics big mix
trinas kitchen
the third estate sunday review
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)