AirAmerica

is the new radio network with liberal commentators and guests. Click here to check it out and to link to the streaming audio.

This is so weird

it couldn't be true. The Iraqi Governing Council is willing to drop the murder charges against al-Sadr and quash the arrest warrant that Bremer's trying to serve on him if al-Sadr agrees to call off his insurgent militia?

But if it's true, what does Bremer do?

I've hardly ever read Forbes

and never cited it, but this story about the massive defection of Bush's counter-terrorism staff is an astoundingly damning piece of evidence that Bush has gone nuts. Nuts. Crazy. Bug-eyed wacko.

Probably not the best authority, but

Pakistan's dictator says that the US investment of troops and materiel in the Iraq conflagration is diminishing the campaign against al-Queda.

Even so, it does support Clarke's assertion--and common sense--that one war is easier to fight than two.

Just like a computer game ...

Where is Raed ?:

"Dear US administration,
Welcome to the next level. Please don't act surprised and what sort of timing is that it: planning to go on a huge attack on the west of Iraq and provoking a group you know very well (I pray to god you knew) that they are trouble makers. "

Our leaders are idiots

Even I--even before I read this piece from AsiaTimes Online--understood that once the US decided to arrest al-Sadr it was doomed to (1) kill him and create a dead martyr; or (2) arrest him and create a live prisoner.

Every once in a while I wish this blog were read more widely

Such as this observation:

There's a new phenomenon on the airwaves (new to me, anyhoo) called the Video News Release (VNR), which, as I understand it, is a pre-packaged TV piece that's transmitted to broadcasting stations as a news item, and is broadcast to the public as such (it's format and tone appears as such, too), but it's really a really a disguised plug, sometimes for a commercial product, sometimes for something more insidious. For example, a governmental program, supporting (you guessed it) Bush/Cheney.

Now B/C have been caught, however. A woman playing a reporter, "reporting" on the benefits of the prescription drug benefit in the newly-enacted Medicare amendment, wasn't a reporter at all, but rather a part-time actress/publicist of the Bush administration. Using public money to plug the President. Another example of Big Brother Bush, controlling the media, the corporations, the government and the money. It's unlikely this practice will be stopped before the election in November, which is of course B/C's purpose.

If Bush isn't re-elected it will be the biggest triumph of democracy ever. And if he is re-elected, we may not see democracy again in the United States in our (my) lifetime.

an ambitious man

A photomontage of Americans killed in Iraq. This is worth seeing!

from antiwar.com

Conspiracy theory?

Naomi Klein, whose books on globalism are right-on, reports from Baghdad that the place is a cauldron of craziness. She wonders, even, if Tribune Bremer was acting on political instructions to bring the business with al-Sadr to a head now by seizing his paper and arresting his publicist, and now by chasing down al-Sadr himself. The reason to foment this resistance now, she thinks, might be to give Bush/Cheney a basis for delaying the turnover of sovereignty past June 30, allowing them to continue on in battle.
Maybe. Maybe, however, they've fallen victim to the syndrome of many bullies. When you're beat, keep fighting.
Whatever's behind it all, even if there's nothing behind our current actions, the effects are the same. Bush/Cheney are taking the heat for this latest outrage, as they should be. Iraq was their war, these deaths are their deaths and we can't let anyone forget it.

Bush/Cheney's petard

During the invasion of Iraq a year ago, all cameras were focused on the assaulting troops and the flare of bombs, to the benefit of Bush/Cheney's "war president" image. Both the Bush administration and the television news programs thrived on the drama of the combat.

Now there's a new eruption of violence on at least two fronts and guess what? The Bush/Cheney camp would rather not have the coverage spread all over the airwaves and are downplaying its significance. But the networks, like good capitalists, like money most of all and aren't inclined to pull back its cameras because like good Americans, we viewers love drama and adore watching violence.

Bush/Cheney turned on the war spigot and can't now turn it off.

CNN Reports

Senator Edward Kennedy, in a speech yesterday, apparently called the battle in Iraq "George Bush's Viet Nam." Tribune Bremer promptly called his remark "ridiculous" and "inappropriate."
Wolf Blitzer on CNN was just interviewing a retired Marine Major General (a so-called "military expert") and asked him if Kennedy's comparison was apt.
His reply (paraphrasing): "Well, actually, yes. We're committed to remaining in a situation we can't control, the world is watching and the situation is deteriorating. So, it sure feels like Viet Nam to me--and I served there for seven years."

When you pay your taxes in a few days

Reflect on the fact that over the last years American corporations paid little or none. None.

Bush Says He Lacked Intelligence

Yahoo! News - Bush Says He Lacked Info on Sept. 11:

"Let me just be very clear about this," he said. "Had we had the information that was necessary to stop an attack, I'd have stopped the attack. ... If we'd have known that the enemy was going to fly airplanes into our buildings, we would have done everything in our power to stop it." I had no intelligence before 9/11, no intelligence after 9/11. I just wish folks would stop accusing me of having intelligence. [OK, I added that last part.]

Well friends, it gets weirder and more twisted. Here's an article in my local weekly paper, in which accusations are made that the government was actually complicit in the tragedy on 9/11. Did the Bush administration take a dive? Whoa.

Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan...

Bush has created a warlord-powered, poppy-driven mess. Had enough?

I don't get it...quite

Tribune Bremer keeps on dictating the laws of Iraq, including this latest "private ownership" decree.

So now, we're fashioning not only a democracy but a capitalist democracy. And will these nation-altering laws remain, or are they merely the last gasps of a declining system?

It's Iraq, stupid

Okay, so some of the employment numbers have turned Bush's way. No problem. Shift to any one of the other outrages of Bush's presidency, most of them centered around his arrogant, mad march to war against Iraq. There's still the Valerie Plame thing, the 9/11 commission (with the concomitant question of Bush's fixation on Iraq), the Joint Committee's report about Iraq intelligence and so forth. Plenty of goodies to bring Bush/Cheney down.

With Tribune Bremer's latest edict to arrest al-Sadr we're assured that we'll still be fighting and dying in Iraq in November. So Kerry's task is to exploit this, to make it's so sore a point that Bush can't explain it away, and indeed to worry the Iraq madness with as many related questions as possible: The deficit, the trade imbalance, the loss of world position, the prevalence of fear in the US and throughout the world. In other words, Bush/Cheney must be painted as monsters, no less. No carping about small questions of policy, Kerry. Huge, powerful condemnations with sweeping, articulate phrasing that will stick to Bush/Cheney and become the mantras of the campaign.

That's what they're doing to you, Kerry. And you've got more ammo on them, more paint to apply.

Sixteen dead soldiers

in April and it's only day five. And now, we're going to try to arrest a Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, whom we contend is behind the violence in the Bagdad suburb of Sadr City. He's "holed up" in a mosque, no doubt surrounded by his followers, so that any attempt to arrest him will lead to a standoff (which will attract TV cameras) and of course more bloodshed--a perfect recruiting tool for anti-coalition Iraqis.

Bush's worst nightmare would be the melding of the Sunni resistance with this Shia resistance. Even if the majority of Iraqis don't join actively, that would be a huge chunk of Iraq's population opposing the US occupation. If the numbers grow big enough by the end of June, or in the months thereafter, it could happen that whoever's in charge of the Iraqi government might order the expulsion of the US military forces.

What a fitting way to bring our soldiers home, driven out by those we "liberated," leaving the country in ruin. How do you spell VietNam?

Class warfare explained

This post in the Bump in the Beltway blog lays out Bush's insidious plan to alter our taxing structure. The cruelest part is that the middle class wage earners are supporting their own demise by blindly backing him.

Baghdad [still] Burning

Riverbend throws some light on the demonstrations in Iraq, and other matters. I wonder when the cheering crowds are scheduled. Ambassador Bremer, is there a logistics problem? Isn't it about time for them to show universal gratitude for libervention?

Today Bremer also announced the fact that we now have an official 'Ministry of Defense'. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on Iraqis- the head of the occupation announcing a "Ministry of Defense". To defend against what? Occupation? Ha, ha… or maybe it's to secure the borders from unwelcome foreigners carrying guns and riding tanks?

Baghdad Burning

Misrble failure to the max

The Sunnis are killing our troops in the triangle, the Shias are killing our troops in Sadr City, the Kurds are biding their time and Islamic extremists are killing Iraqi police in Baghdad.

The "turnover" is imminent. Is it possible Bush has gotten himself into a quagmire that even Rove can't spin him out of?

Take just a moment

to place this event in perspective. Twenty Iraqis killed, hundreds wounded, in a protest. Can you imagine what would happen in the US if twenty people were killed during a protest? Kent State, a protest that sparked national outrage, involved four deaths.

This is the biggest story of the year

Insiders are saying what we predicted--that invading Iraq would simply create a breeding ground for anti-American sentiment, in essence "a movement" seeded by our warlike behavior.

Democrats can win the presidential election--hands down--in a single stroke

by invoking Robert's Rules of Order in such a way as to wrangle the 9/11 commission into following Condi Rice's bullshit testimony ("We didn't know, couldn't know, about the imminent airplane attack on US skyscrapers") with the directly contradictory evidence of Sibel Edmonds, who translated intelligence documents precisely to the opposite effect.
Why do I think this will turn the tide? Check out the photo of the translator on the above link. She's a knockout (besides being multilingual), and so will appeal even to Bush supporters. What am I saying? Especially to Bush supporters, who define truth by what's prettiest.

Somewhere in Manhattan, there's a janitor who stands to make a cool fifty grand

if he/she tells the complete story of when and how and by whom he/she was ordered to cover up the painting, Guernica by Picasso, that would otherwise have been displayed as the backdrop of Colin Powell's now-discredited speech to the UN Security Council in which he detailed the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to justify our invasion?
Wouldn't you pay, even pay-per-view, to follow the exquisite details of the backstage machinations, from the initial order emanating from the White House to its final effectuation?

WarBots

Check out Revenge of the WarBots on antiwar.com:

"We tried to warn you. We protested, we railed and wrote arguments against the war, but you wouldn't listen. Now, those mercs killed in Fallujah were your responsibility. You put them there, with your cakewalking, rosepetal fantasies and ridiculous misconceptions about Iraq. The blood of all the dead from your illegal, unjustified war in Iraq - both 'coalition' and Iraqi - is on your hands. "

Raed on Falluja

Raed in the Middle ... insightful thoughts on the cycle of violence.

The real reason for the invasion of Iraq?

Or just another one?

Fallujah

A perspective on the horror in Fallujah: Juan Cole * Informed Comment * ... was it revenge for the incineration of Yassin by Sharon?

Jobs

From CNBC this morning: Gateway is closing nearly all (180) of its retail stores, laying off 2,500 workers. (I happened to enter such a store three years ago, newly opened in SB, when I wanted to buy a laptop. I went through my list of desired specs with the salesperson, had my credit card in hand and then was told that the machine would be shipped in three days. The salesperson told me that the store didn't stock computers, but was only an outlet for receiving retail orders. I left the store and bought my laptop--a Compaq--at Circuit City, muttering under my breath that Gateway's retail concept was idiotic. Three years later, apparently, they concurred.)
CNBC also reports that Sun Microsystems is laying off 3,500 jobs.
The Labor Department will issue its report on March job levels ten minutes from now. The concensus of projections is that the unemployment rate will remain constant at 5.6%, and the economy will add 120,000 jobs, about the same numbers as was projected last month, when the eventual figure was 21,000. (Recall, it takes about 150,000 additional jobs each month, on average, to keep up with the growth of the number of persons entering the workforce.)
To be updated very shortly.

Update: The numbers are high: 308,000 new nonfarm jobs in March; upward revision of February's jobs to 46,000 from 21,000, and January's job numbers upwarly revised too. The unemployment rate, however, increased to 5.7% and there's hardly any movement in the net income per worker and there's actually a loss in hours of work. Furthermore, the sectors that grew jobs were not high paying. Retail, services, and so forth. Manufacturing didn't add any jobs.

These figures, however, are fodder for the Bush campaign. If they keep up at this level in the coming months, look forward to four more years with Bush at the helm.

Floor Statement of Sen. Daschle on the Abuse of Government Power

You guys gotta read this. Seriously. Tom Daschle speaks out on the Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill witch hunts, "the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a deep cover CIA agent," and the Abuse of Government Power.

"This is no way to run a government.

The White House and its supporters should not be using the power of government to try to conceal facts from the American people or to reshape history in an effort to portray themselves in the best light."

Backfire

Check out this on Antiwar.com Blog. The writer posits that the whole theory of installing Jeffersonian democracy with heavy armor is backfiring. Well, yes. ... But look, a new word: liberventionist. Cool.

Let God sort 'em out...

In response to Sound Familiar? ...

Everything about this war is the same evil as every other war. The whole damned thing is a bubbling, seething magma of insanity piped fresh from the irritable bowels of hell. And when I saw those hyenas lynching and cavorting around those crispy corpses, I wanted an Apache helicopter to drop down over the Euphrates and strafe the whole misbegotten crowd. Mow ‘em all down, let God sort ‘em out.

See what war does to the mind? Who should I call about what it's doing to mine?

Dona nobis pacem, fac Dominae. Salva me fac Dominae. …Pacem! … Mir! … Peace!

Just imagine

If the April 1 list of killings and bombings in Iraq were to occur in a comparable area/population of the United States, say Southern California, we'd be calling out the National Guard, right? Well all those killings are happening with the military already in place.
Scroll down the list, pop around the links to see how the numbers flow from bad to bad to bad. You'll be amazed that Bremer can call this place "an evovling democracy." It's an existing hell.

Sound familiar?

Tribune Bremer's announcement that those who defiled the Americans in Fallujah will be "punished" sounds frighteningly like the kind of decrees that issued from the SS during the occupation of Paris, no?

Starbucksgate

Seems somebody named Eric, who works for Donald Rumsfeld, left some interesting notes on a table in a Washington Starbucks. I imagine they have a shredder next to the table with the half-n-half and Splenda. He shoulda used that on his way out.

Link
[Washington Post, being kinda clueless, requires registration. They don't realize you're defeating the purpose and function of the Internet if people can't link to your content.]

Chaos

I'm listening to KPFK this morning -- an interview with a reporter named Robert Fisk in Baghdad. Besides the chaos of the event in which bodies of foreigners have been dragged from their vehicle and hung from a bridge, he opined that the situation in Iraq generally is getting worse, more violent. This is bad news, obviously. But it's good news, politically.

"I don't think think that reporters should be talking about their own safety. Most of the people being killed in Iraq are Iraqis." ... He went on to point out the disparate media coverage of the deaths of westerns there, as compared to the deaths of Iraqis.

Unspectacular campaign

AirAmerica, the liberal radio network that is due to start in a few markets at noon today is off to a less than awesome beginning. This site lists the stations where it may be heard and says that the website will provide a streaming Internet source, but no link. Maybe tomorrow?

I must say, we here in Santa Barbara are blessed with Pacifica Radio, heard at 98.7 FM, KPFK, and of course other like-minded transmissions on KPFK, which also streams through its site to the world, but I'm going to support AirAmerica too. We've just got to take back America, and we've got to start somewhere, however modest that start appears.
Update: The website of AirAmerica has been spiffed up bigtime since I linked to it this morning. It now shows the programs and the performers. Much good stuff. Log on and hope.

Updated update. Here's a list of sites that may allow streaming audio of the new network.

Kerry watch

Not in derogation of my immutable opposition to the re-election of Bush/Cheney in November, I'm going to maintain a (sometimes) log of items about John Kerry--his activities and positions--that are troubling to me as a liberal. For starters, there's this position paper about Venezuela on Kerry's website.

Here we go again

Waiting for the all-important monthly jobs figures. More important now than ever.

Conditional Condi

If I were still a lawyer, I would insist that Condi Rice give testimony only after all the underlying paperwork is available for use in examining her. There's a wealth of documentation, including Richard Clarke's emails and memos to her, all still "classified," that must be in hand before her testimony can be tested.
Will this happen, or will the examiners' questioning of Condi be wussy and weak? I fear the latter, partly because of the Commissioners' lack of gumption, partly because of their lack of paperwork. Partly, too, because the Commissioners' fear that badgering Condi might be taken as, well, anti-woman, anti-black, anti-both.

I fear, as I noted below, that Condi's gonna carry the day, as a good liar can when unchallenged.

Another take

There are two sides to every story, especially in international economics. For the side that disputes my preceding post, check here.

Consider the (out)source

A report by the Information Technology Association of America says that foreign outsourcing of tech jobs won't harm the economy, it'll actually create good jobs in America because it will lower inflation and spur productivity. Right.
First of all, inflation could hardly be lower than it is. Second, the productivity gains that have so far been experienced haven't been turned into jobs, but rather to increased profits of corporations. Third, over what time span is all this to occur? Perhaps within the period of unemployment insurance coverage? Hardly. So what do we tell the children whose tech-writing dad or mom is now taking orders for fries?

The report goes on to say that "only" 103,000 tech jobs have been lost to outsourcing so far (this, BTW, at an early stage of the phenomenon), a figure that doesn't approach the loss of tech jobs when the dot-com bubble burst. This figure is 268,00, and 103,000 "so far" sure sounds to me like it's approaching 268,000.

Toward the end of the article we're told who ITAA consists of: Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Amazon.com, outsourcers all. Indeed, whenever I need to fix my H/P Compaq, who do I call? You guessed it: A guy named Pavel or something in New Delhi.

PS. If you want to read past the spin of the news release that's linked to above, you can read the ten-page summary of the report (Adobe Reader required), and you'll find that buried within it are huge assumptions and qualifications that more or less amount to saying this: Trust us--all will be well someday.

Despair

I've returned from a brief trip to Tucson, where I spent time with my brother John. He, a knowledgeable liberal Democrat, is certain that Bush will carry Arizona (as Republican presidential candidates regularly do), and I sensed in him a profound despair about the upcoming election nationally.
Being from California, I wasn't as fearful of the result, but now that I'm back home and have read the recent CNN poll results, I'm despairing too.
I have this realization. Kerry doesn't fire up his natural electorate of poor, people of color, liberals/progressive/moderate whites. This is most dramatically shown by the spate of anti-Bush banners in various demonstrations, but few pro-Kerry signs. So, the candidate isn't going to pull in the votes, and the positive messages about his programs aren't either, for three reasons: First, because they're not inspiring programs, just rehashed ones; and second, they're delivered without coverage and fine speeches, just ordinary ones; and third because Bush has the money and position to cast stones at each message within hours of its delivery.

So, my despair has two facets. First that Bush/Cheney will likely win the election; and second that the only way for that to be avoided is for some unforeseen, cataclysmic event to occur in the US that will sway voters away from Bush. Neither alternative is desirable to me, but this morning that's how I see it falling out.

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel different, but right now...

Be careful what you ask for...

So Condi will testify publicly and under oath after all. Oh perfect. Rove has played the Commission and the public (and most of all the "outraged liberals") perfectly. After all this hulabaloo, the eyes of the press and the masses will be glued to her every word and of course she'll be brilliant. She'll weave a quilt of deceit and dissembling that will dazzle the hapless commission members and not a one, not Ben Veniste, not former Senator Kerrey, none of them, will be able to score any points. As a result, she'll completely cover over Richard Clarke's allegations with smooth phrases and gobbledegook. Indeed, because she's proven herself to be capable of lying, and has a track record to protect, she'll smoothly refute Clarke's charges point by point--which is the benefit of being the last witness.
I saw this coming a week ago and didn't post about it because I thought it was so obvious.
So much for the damage caused by Clarke's allegations. All that the public will remember is how forthcoming Bush has been, how truthful and solid Condi is, how strong the administration is and how secure we may rest in our beds.
We shouldn't have squealed about Condi's refusal to testify after the initial squeal. Now we've allowed Bush to turn this public relations nightmare into a plus.

Who's running this show, anyway?

Baghdad Burning

"All they did was beat me."

Reporter Apologizes for Iraq Coverage

I would like to meet this guy and buy him lunch.

"The media are finished with their big blowouts on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and there is one thing they forgot to say: We're sorry,' Rick Mercier wrote, in a column published Sunday in The Free Lance-Star.

'Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage. Sorry we were dismissive of experts who disputed White House charges against Iraq. Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us. Sorry we fell for Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations. Sorry we couldn't bring ourselves to hold the administration's feet to the fire before the war, when it really mattered.

'Maybe we'll do a better job next war."

Reporter Apologizes for Iraq Coverage

Presidential Poetry

Since Erik is effectively away from his computer today, we have a special treat. It's a "poem" made up of real quotes* from our War President.

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER
by George W. Bush

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher! "


*Source: Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics

He Who Did Not Know, Knows

Found on antiwar.com:

Senator Jay Rockefeller says his vote in support of war in Iraq was wrong and based on bad intel. The WV Senator is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"If I had known then what I know now, I would have voted against it."

"I have admitted that my vote was wrong."

"The decision got made before there was a whole bunch of intelligence," said "I think the intelligence was shaped. And I think the interpretation of the intelligence was shaped."

[Shaped? Yeah, we all know what it was shaped out of.]

"We had this feeling we could be welcomed as liberators. Americans don't know history, geography, ethnicity. The administration had no idea of what they were getting into in Iraq. We are not internationalists. We border on being isolationists. We don't know anything about the Middle East."

[Link]

Rice Discusses Terror, but Not Under Oath

I wonder if Dr. Rice knows it's not OK to lie, whether you're under oath or not?

Link

Power of Incumbency, or of Big Brother

I'm watching MSNBC at 9:45 a.m. on Friday. They've chosen to cover live and uninterrupted, for an extended period (10 minutes, so far), a straight-up Bush campaign speech delivered in New Mexico. The lead-in to the story was that Bush was going to talk about a housing plan or something, but the speech so far hasn't said anything about that. Instead it was Bush pleading for votes, calling attention to his attack on Iraq as a threat, talking about his forebearance in Iraq and so forth.

This is more than news coverage. It's unadulterated bias in favor Bush by MSNBC, owned, as we know, by General Electric--a major supplier of military weapons to the US and the world.

Meanwhile, Kerry has announced a major economic program. Not a moment is given to his presentation. Not a whisper.

I'm telling you, we've now arrived at Big Brother, sponsored not just by the state, but by a combination of the state, the media and the monied interests.

We who resist this monolith must rally outside of the mainstream. We can't succumb to the urge to quit in the face of all this power. We've got to take America back.

Soldier Suicide Rate in Iraq Jumps

I'm posting this without comment. What the hell could I say?

Yahoo! News - Soldier Suicide Rate in Iraq Jumps

Democrats, hurrah!

I'm watching the Democrats' Unity Dinner on TV, telecast on C-Span. All the heavyweights were there: Carter, Clinton, Gore, Dean, Sharpton, Kucinich, Braun, and of course Kerry--plus thousands of donors. Carter and Clinton spoke, eloquently, passionately, powerfully. Made me proud to be an American, proud to be part of that portion of the American ideology that tries to make the world a better place for all of us, for the rest of the world, for the future. Truly a moving display of fine principles, of hope for the future.
Unlike Bush's fund-raiser the other day, telecast as primetime news on CNN, Fox and MSNBC, this truly momentous event wasn't shown widely. But it was so powerful that I'm confident, this evening, that Kerry can win in November.

Finally a real scandal, a truly willfull lie

The story of the extortionate pressure by the White House on a Medicare actuary to withhold his estimate of the cost of Bush's Medicare law surfaced three days ago in Newsweek Magazine under the title, "The Smell of a Real Scandal." I've read the magazine article, but haven't heard a whisper of this outrageous action on any of the television news programs.
Today, however, the story made it to the NYT, and can no longer be ignored by the popular media. Particularly in view of the estimate that Medicare is going to go broke soon. Can't be ignored. Right?

We're killing toddlers and livestock!!!

Does this sound like Viet Nam to you?

Check out these numbers

Sure--589 dead soldiers in Iraq is awful. But check out this list of weekly casualties.

This the Bush/Cheney's war. Nobody else's. These deaths and these life-crippling injuries are on their heads. This must not be lost in the b.s. about blame for 9/11. What needs to be known is that the two executives of our nation have cost us thousands of American lives and limbs, billions of dollars and untold amounts of less tangible, but even more lasting, decline of our standing in the world, and in the history of the world.

I'm sorry to have been a citizen during this time of America's decline and will do my best to make up for it between now and November 2.

Listen..and weep

These two Fed officials show their true colors. One talks about the imminent disaster that is spelled by the present and projected federal deficits; the other (Greenspan) talks about the present "dislocation" of workers, terming it "a worthwhile price to pay for the increases in living standards productivity brings."

Their solution? Doing nothing..

Powerful images

I'm watching CNN's broadcast of Howard Dean's endorsement speech of John Kerry. Dean's a hell of a stump speaker, full of energy and hope and passion. Damn, I hope that power can Kerry over to the November election. :-)

Yesterday, I watched the 9/11 Commission hearings, in particular Richard Clarke's apology to the survivors of the victims of 9/11 and the most telling moment: when Clarke testified that "...the reason I am strident in my criticism of the president of the United States is because by invading Iraq . . . the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism."

This was a stunning statement and it rocked the hearing room. The Republican member of the Commission had no further questions, no retort. And even the Bushies are silent on this subject, instead trying to besmirch Clarke's character. But they'e getting tongue-tied. Cheney says Clarke was "out of the loop," while Condi Rice says he was "deeply involved" in the pre- and post-9/11 activities.

The fact is, many others who were in the loop support Clarke's view of the Bushies' fixation on Iraq immediately after 9/11. Recall that Wesley Clark asserted this some months ago, and Bush's former Treasury Secretary said the same thing. Finally, the Commission has heard similar testimony from another intelligence officer:

"Patrick Lang, a former head of the Middle East section of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that Clarke was perhaps too 'shrill' in his complaints about Bush. But Clarke's analysis about the Bush administration, Lang observed, is correct.

"'What he's talking about is these guys were not interested in al-Qaida. They wanted Iraq.'"

Richard Clarke for Christ

If you need to turn to an image, a visage, of someone who's unwilling to put with the sacrimonious crap that these days passes for truth, try Richard Clarke. He speaks in short sentences, he speaks truth.

And he'll become a martyr to a cause--of truth.

What B.S.

The Nine-Eleven Commission's hearing, being telecast publicly today and yesterday, are singularly uninformative on the subject it's supposed to be investigating. Mealy-mouthed bureaucrats talking in circles, dodging direct questions, not asking direct questions, just plain trash, full of catch-phrases and fluff.
Don't bother to watch it. Watergate it's not. Maybe when Clarke testifies this afternoon, but so far nada.

A day of superlatives

Gasoline at historically high prices, stock market indexes at yearlong lows, and credit card debt is at an all-time high. And that's just the good news.

Student George W. Bush

A professor who taught Bush at Harvard speaks. Not just illuminating, frightening.

Fun, fun, fun

One of the joys of blogging is making up a catchy title for the post. My practice is to write the post first, spending that time deliberating on the title and hopefully (but hardly always) coming up with a clever headline.

But none of my titles is as clever as this one from this Blah3 post, which calls attention to Croatia's newly-announced equivocation about sending troops to Iraq. The headline: "Coalition of the dwindling."

Bush is delighted by the Israelis' attack on the Hamas cleric

because it has ignited Hamas against the US and has therefore given us a new enemy. This is implicit in Bush's latest pronouncement on the subject.

Believe me, as much as I would like to think that Bush is sincere about bringing terrorism to an end, and that his failure to succeed plays into the hands of those of us who want to address the causes of terrorism rather than making "war on terr'r," I now appreciate that the opposite is true. Bush has no interest in having terror cease. It feeds his presidency, it justifies his calls for common defense and cements his role as a "war president" and so to keep a handle on his re-election.

Alarming numbers

This data is freaky. Only because the Far East governments (Japan and China), not individual investors, who know better, are buying US debt instruments. The governments, of course, are doing so to keep the dollar from plummeting and so to avoid harm to their exports to the US. But at some point these governments may decide that enough's enough, that cutting their losses is better than continuing to ride a losing horse. When that happens...

What does it take

To get Bush out of office? His former Treasury Secretary, and now his former terrorism czar, state on the record that Bush made war against Iraq because of his obsession with Saddam Hussein, not as part of a war against terror. This, by the way, dovetails precisely with the emerging proof that Bush tailored the WMD evidence to give a justification for the invasion.

Going to war because of a personal vendetta, spending the peoples' money, sending their children to death to further a personal agenda--these are what ancient, corrupt kings and emperors did, always, as we know, leading to the downfall of their reigns.

Let's hope history repeats.

The Hydra

So, today Israeli forces killed a Hamas leader, the idea being if they murder a prominent leader of Hamas they will damage the movement and will thereby be able to reach peace with the Palestinians.
We believe that if we kill Osama bin Laden (or Saddam Hussein) we'll cause their movements to quit.

Just think about it. If these people believe they're right, and righteously so, killing their leaders will simply inflame them. Imagine, if our leader was killed by them. Would the US be crippled? No. Even if (especially if) it was our present leader, the US would be more empowered, more resolute. A thousand heads would replace the severed one.

As in the Middle East, so here, so anywhere.

Better late than never

European leaders beginning to re-think the strategy of a "war" on terror?

Whaddya know.

Good company

We in the US, and elsewhere in the capitals of the world, weren't alone in our protest of the US occupation of Iraq. The citizens of Baghdad were out in force too.

Toldja so

During the peace march in SB today, one of our most popular chants was, "We told you so!" The fact is, everything evil that would result from invasion of Iraq--according to those who objected to it--is coming to pass. A nightmare in Iraq itself, the spread of terror elsewhere, the anger of the Muslim world, the alienation of our traditional allies, a huge expense in American and Iraqi lives, and American dollars.
Now, my own chant, to the same effect: The rising price of oil, due in part to the weak dollar, causing inflationary prices, rising in an economy that's dormant. Deflation.

Something Bovine This Way Comes

Today on Buzzstuff I learned this:

The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."

Another day another trauma

Riverbend reports from Baghdad about brain-drain from Iraq. Arrests, murders, kidnappings of learned professors and doctors, leaving the place filled with contractors, mercenaries, thieves.

Just like the United States.

BTW--I've noticed that during the television shows about the the NCAA playoffs the Marines and the Army are displaying ads for recruitment, bigtime. More evidence of the military state we're in in the US.

Live news coverage of Bush's campaign speech

I'm watching MSNBC, also CNN, giving uninterrupted coverage, as "breaking news," of a campaign rally of Bush in Florida. Jeb Bush's speech, wife Laura's, then Bush's. With the millions of dollars in Bush's war chest for re-election, plus this gratis coverage, he's all over the tube. I've not seen a moment of coverage of any opposition, except a brief mention of the thousands of anti-war rallies around the world.
Twenty-five minutes of TV showing Bush preaching to the choir, two minutes showing those who are shouting outside the church.

meanwhile, back at the front ...

While the media struggle to outdo each other on their insipid anniversary coverage, the kids in uniform are dying at an even faster pace. Happy Anniversary, Mr. President!

The asteroid missed...

damn it. If only it would have landed on a certain Pennsylvania Avenue address.

"Turning over sovereignty"

We keep hearing that phrase. It's supposed to happen at the end of June. What does it mean? To whom is sovereignty handed? What is sovereignty, anyway? Will whoever/whatever takes over sovereignty know what to do, how to do it? Will anybody obey whoever it is that takes over?

What a mess.

Outsourcing to "emerging markets."

This report that 25 percent of US tech jobs will be sent abroad by 2010, merely posits what it calls a "harsh reality." Fact is, the low wages and round-the-clock use of such labor is irresistible to American capitalists.
Interesting sidenote: As the foreigners gain income from the practice, they also gain buying power. What will they buy? Products made abroad, of course, just like Americans do.
Do you sense the end of an empire here?

Demand for oil

Oil prices have hit 11-year highs, highest since just before the Gulf War. And guess what? Among the factors causing this spike is "demand from China."
Recall, the Third World has barely entered the industrial age, has yet to expand its transport and factory output to anywhere near its potential, much less to afford autos for its growing billions of people. But in the next few years, look out! We're going to be paying high prices for oil/gasoline not as much because of our own gluttony, but because of others' hunger.

The first anniversary

of Bush's invasion of Iraq has brought a flood of TV "specials" that are nothing but celebrations of our military might. Even with plenty of opportunity to process photos from Iraqis and others' journalists, the news channels show us no images of the war from the other side, no images of the terror we wrought. This is nothing but a re-hash of the embedded reporters' one-sided reports from a year ago.

Cheaper and easier, I guess.

Islamic Extremists

Imagine my surprise upon reading that Islamic Extremists are thought to be responsible for attacks in Iraq. No! Seriously? We all thought it was Snow White and the Seven Osamas. Especially Grumpy; keep that little bastard away from the C-4!

Yahoo! News

Struggling for a word here

But I finally came up with one: Ordinary. I watched as much as I could tolerate of the Trump thingee, The Apprentice. Is that who we've become? If so--and I fear so--it looks like we're headed for four more years of leadership by the king of ordinary, Bush.
How do we change this in the next eight months, when it took 200 years to arrive at this cultural sump?

Ya gotta love it

Bush touts small businessmen ("the entrepreneurial class"), to whom he's given the bulk of the tax cuts, as the source of jobs to come. But they can't hire! Why? Because Bush's other buddy, health insurance companies, are making it too expensive for them to hire new employees.

Rogue Nation

Bush isuses a thinly-veiled warning to Spain for pulling its troops out of Iraq and, on the same day that Poland's leadership says it was "misled" into signing on with the "coalition of the willing," talks of an eternal war against terror.

Ya know what? The true terrorist in this world is George W. Bush.

A Career Change Idea

I've spotted a very interesting career change suggestion for Mr. Bush, in this post on The Messopotamian, an Iraqi blog. He seems to think the Kurds would be pleased to elect our soon-to-be-replaced president to high office. He has the polling stats to back it up. Works for me.

The "new Iraq"

Now that the US military has withdrawn from the cities of Iraq in order to safeguard its troops (although not to much effect in terms of stopping the killing of US troops), the insurgents are free to attack in Baghdad and other population centers, without interdiction by our troops and without leaving any trace for our intelligence to stop further attacks.

So--the US military is going to be proven unable to give security to the cities and it's not a big step to the argument that they shouldn't be allowed to remain. Let's hope that the Iraqis, shortly after power is turned over to them, take this step and kick us out. At least that way the bleeding will stop.

Ominous, indeed

From Forex News: "An ominous prospect would unravel if the Fed finds itself between having to temper inflationary pressures and reviving the bland recovery."

If the Fed raises interest rates to ward off the dreaded inflation, it would likely dampen the tepid recovery. If it leaves the interest rate alone, while inflation charges on, it could fuel rampant inflation.

Greenspan, this may be your doing. You're so hell-bent on fueling the recovery with money borrowed at low rates that you're going to drive us into deflation, that is, inflation without growth, the worst possible economic scenario.

Congratulations.

Don't believe the polls

My new mantra. Especially when I don't like what they say.

Journey In Iraq Ends

US Marine Corps reservist and blogger Bob Zangas has given the last full measure of devotion in Iraq. He was killed last week. Bob Zangas' Journey In Iraq. Go to that page and look at his picture. Let it burn into your dreams. And when you see the War President on the television, remember the face you saw a moment on your computer.

Condolences can be posted here.

I am sad.

Open Letter to GIs in Iraq

This letter to GIs, called Hold On to Your Humanity, is written by a Vietnam veteran. It's very powerful.

Two economic reports

The first a personal one. I just filled up my Volvo at a cost of $34.00--$2.36 per gallon for the lowest octane gasoline. The tank holds 16 gallons.

The second report is from CNBC this morning. Sales of SUV's are slumping badly. I wonder why, given that their gas tanks hold up to 30 gallons.

"A hundred bin Ladens"

Remember this prediction by an Egyptian leader? This would be the result, he said, of the war in Iraq. Well, check out this story about the terrorist network, which suggests that precisely this has occurred, and that the war on terror could last for decades. A truly frightening--and depressing--prognosis for our world.

Rumsfeld's Words

Donald Rumsfeld denied saying Saddam was an immediate threat to the US. But he did.

He's the Commander!

“I’m the commander - see, I don’t need to explain - I don’t need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

- George W. Bush, Washington Post, 11-19-02

And now for the good news...

About the continuing growth of the job gap.

I knew there was something rotten...

about the turnover of sovereignty. According to this analysis, of the recently touted Iraqi interim law, the regulations enacted by the US Tribune Bremer must remain in effect until a later constitutional entity (only created after country-wide elections, expected in 2005) repeals them. So, whatever Bremer has wrought, including privatization of Iraq, will remain in force until long after the US has departed. So much for democracy.

Taxes and jobs

This WaPo article, not the product of a mad economist, simply correlates the historical impact of income taxation and employment. Conclusion: No relationship, notwithstanding Bush's bullshit that repealing the tax increase on the rich will cause a loss of jobs.

The Bush/Cheney War

The Democrats have got to characterize the invasion of Iraq as a personal, crazed adventure promoted by these two mad executives and their ideological cronies. We've lost more than 550 soldiers, wounded 3,000 more, and now we're losing civilians, well-meaning Americans who want only peace but are met by violent reaction to our policies. We've wasted billions of dollars, wasted our standing in the world and our domestic economy.
This is intolerable and must be highlighted by Kerry's publicists. He can't win unless he is able to paint Bush/Cheney (always connecting the two, so that Bush is dragged down by Cheney) as out-of-the-loop madmen.

Kerry's good, damned good

I just watched John Kerry's speech to the International Association of Firefighters on CSpan. Man, I gotta tell, this guy delivers a hell of a speech. Strong, well-spoken, delivered with force and urgency. He's gonna win this election, not just because we work for him, but because he's working really hard too.

A ticking time bomb...metaphorically...

Is the stifling effect on ocean transport when, on July 1, a UN rule goes into effect. The mandate, sponsored by the US, requires international ports and cargo ships to be certified as safe from terrorism or else be forbidden to handle cargo. So far, only a fraction have been certified--none in many countries--which can cause a monstrous bottleneck in international trade. A product surely to be affected? Oil.

The best laid plans

The Bush administration's policies (increased deficits, increased imbalance of trade) have caused the dollar to weaken against foreign currencies, especially the euro. They not only caused this, they are allowing it to abide, reasoning that if dollars are cheaper, foreigners will import more American products, thereby boosting our economy and increasing the number of jobs in the US.

Of course this hasn't happened, and the trouble is, the cheaper dollar--the currency in which oil is purchased--has now become a justification for OPEC's increase in target price for oil, which will cause higher gas prices and hence inflation in the US.

Upshot, Miserable Failure? We get higher prices, plus a lack of jobs. Wonderful.

I am speechless (almost)

I've just watched two separate hour-long accounts of the US invasion of Iraq, presented on TV on the first "anniversary." One by CNN, the other by The History Channel. Presumably "trusted" sources.
What a crock! Both consisted entirely of "embedded reporters'" stories and recollections, and/or US analysts' observations. Not a frame was derived from news services that were on the ground (but not on our side), and not a single reference was made to the impact of the war on the other side, except for some exculpatory shots of our troops helping a family that had been wrongly targeted.

Listen up, mutherfuckers: We initiated this war. We declared war on a foreign nation, invaded it, just like Hitler invaded Poland. But even worse. Our supposed justification was that the leadership (Saddam) was an oppressive dictator whose defeat would liberate the Iraqis. The Iraqis weren't our enemies, just their leader.

And so all this footage about how effective we were at blazing through the desert and the cities, and how little collateral damage we caused, is repulsive. We shouldn't have been there, killing Iraqis. And even if we were there, illegally, our entire concept and justification was that the people weren't our enemies, just their dictator. So why, I ask, are we judging this invasion as if it were the conquest of Germany or Japan, whose nations were aligned against us?

I'm running out of vitriol. Except to say this: On yesterday's march, someone drove by in an SUV the size of Rhode Island and shouted at us, "Four more years!"

I couldn't reply. I gagged.